By RABECCA CHIPANTA –
TANZANIA-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) says indicators are showing that the company is making positive strides in revamping its operations to reclaim its position in the transport sector.
The company has since improved its haulage from 87,000 tonnes recorded during the 2014/2015 financial year to an expected 150,000 tonnes during the close of the 2015/2016 financial year in June.
Speaking during a media briefing in Ndola on Thursday, TAZARA deputy managing director Betram Kiswaga, who was in the country on a familiarisation tour, said the authority was expecting to haul at least 150,000 tonnes by the close of the financial year.
This is almost double the amount recorded during the last financial year, until it reaches a breakeven point of hauling 600,000 tonnes per year.
“Although the authority recorded the worst performance ever during the last financial year having moved only 87,860 tonnes for the whole year, indications are that the performance has begun improving and the downward trend that begun over 10 years ago is now in reverse.
With three months still remaining before the close of the 2015/2016 financial year, the authority has already surpassed last year’s performance having so far transported 90,000 tons,” he said
Mr Kiswaga however stated that TAZARA was built with a capacity to transport over five million tonnes annually and that the 600,000 tonnes per annum would not be good enough as the market was able to offer a lot more freight for the railways firm that had improved service delivery to satisfy customer demands.
Mr Kiswaga said handling capacity at the Dar es Salaam port whose output had been growing over the years from 12 million tonnes in 2012 to 14 million tonnes in 2015.
“Output is expected to peak to 18 million tonnes in 2018. Of the ports out, the share of Dar es Salaam corridor serviced by TAZARA is estimated around 16 percent. Going by these statistics, the implication is that in 2014 alone, at least 2.2 million tonnes could have been availed for TAZARA to capture had the authority been competitive enough,” he said
Mr Kiswaga said with the over US$16 million dollars pumped into the firm by both the Zambian and Tanzanian Governments to boost operations and the positive indicators, the authority had received a vote of confidence from key customers who had increased monthly volumes of cargo allocated to TAZARA for transportation.
“We have received renewed commitment and are expecting huge volumes of freight from customers that had lost confidence in TAZARA including the Zambian and Malawian Governments that will be resuming transportation of petroleum products using the TAZARA line,” he said
He further stated that due to improvement in performance the authority had attained some level of stability and assured customers of its determination to continue building on the achievements to raise its performance levels.