Spoornet stands a good chance in bid for Tanzanian Railways

Leonard Neill
SPOORNET WILL take on an advisory role and
provide expertise in the supply of rolling stock and infrastructural development for the Tanzania
railway system, should Comazar Consortium (Great Lakes Railway
Co) of South Africa be
the successful bidder
in the privatisation of Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC).
Transnet has a 31,6% stake in the consortium, and will therefore call on resources available in Spoornet for any assistance required, a Spoornet source told FTW.
The Tanzanian government has identified four foreign bidders for the rail company as part of its
privatisation programme. Comazar and the US group, Genesee and Wyoming Inc have fully pre-qualified
to bid for the concessioning, according to John Rubambe, executive chairman of the Presidential Parastatal Sector Reform Commission.
Two others, Canac of Canada and SNCF International of France, have pre-qualified subject to finalising their consortia,
he said.
The short-listed companies will be invited to
submit bids to lease, manage and operate railway infrastructure, as well as provide freight and passenger services on the
TRC network.
No estimates of the value of the deal have been
disclosed. The Tanzanian government intends to identify the concessionaire during the fourth quarter of this year.
Spoornet sources do not expect to play a major
role in the development, other than in an advisory role. Currently a considerable amount of South African exports are railed from Gauteng to Kidatu
in Tanzania on the 1,067m gauge track used by Spoornet. They are then moved by mobile crane
to trucks on the one metre gauge line which travels north to the Great Lakes port of Mwanza, for
on-carriage northbound
by vessel and rail as far
as Uganda.
With this established operation, there is confidence in rail circles that the South African bid may well be the successful one.