Swazi Rail feels the pinch as sugar moves to road

JAMES HALL
MBABANE – Swaziland Railways has lost half its sugar business this year, as sugar estates increasingly prefer road transport to export their products from the landlocked country to Durban. “The company has started feeling the pinch from the 50% diversion of shipments of sugar from rail to road,” Swaziland Railway CEO Gideon Mahlalela said in a recent press statement. He warned of additional perils affecting the company’s bottom line this year, including higher diesel prices. “Other problems that will affect our profits at the end of March 2007 include the serious locomotive problems from Spoornet in conveying transit traffic,” Mahlalela said. The CEO was hopeful that the Spoornet train leasing hiccups would be resolved. An upswing in sugar haulage soon seems unlikely in light of the sugar export industry’s performance ending November 2006. This year saw a 15% drop in exports to the European Union through the common Market for Eastern and Southern Africa (COMESA). The EU remains the major overseas buyer of Swaziland’s chief export, sugar.