. Mukanga
By REBECCA MUSHOTA –
GOVERNMENT is working on implementing long term solutions to the problems at Tanzania Zambia Railways Authority (TAZARA) that have also led to three months of unpaid salaries for workers.
Transport Minister Yamfwa Mukanga said Government wanted to find permanent solutions to the problems that TAZARA was facing, because it was the best way to deal with issues of unpaid salaries.
TAZARA unionised workers went on strike on May 12, this year demanding their three months salary arrears for January, February and March.
The workers on the Zambian side resumed work but their counterparts in Tanzania are still on strike.
TAZARA suspended both freight and passenger operations between Dar es Salaam and Tunduma in Tanzania, while operations between Nakonde and Kapiri-Mposhi have not been affected.
Mr Mukanga in an interview yesterday said he had met the Workers Union of TAZARA (WUTAZ) officials for a meeting in which he told them that Government has called for a council of ministers in Tanzania next week to discuss the problems the company was facing.
He said one long term solution would be to secure funding for recapitalisation in the operations of the railway company.
“The company has a long history of financial and efficiency problems that need to be resolved permanently, which will then sort out the problems of salaries. It is not just unpaid salaries but even retirees have not been paid and the train is not efficient,” he said.
Mr Mukanga said he told the union officials that withdrawing labour, like some of their members had done, did not help but instead had the potential of plunging the company in more problems.
He said the problems that TAZARA was facing needed to be handled carefully to ensure that the institution was properly revamped.
WUTAZ president Kenneth Simwiza said in an interview that the members in Tanzania were still on strike and that this still affected the operations in Zambia.
Mr Simwiza said the meeting that the union officials had with Mr Mukanga was promising.
