Tazara needs more capital to improve operations: board

Dar es Salaam. The board of directors of the Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (Tazara) has resolved to seek short-term re-capitalisation from the two shareholding governments to keep the trains running as it looks for the most suitable and sustainable way of financing the overhaul of the organisation in the long term.

The board – which met in Dar es Salaam on Monday – understands that Tazara’s operations have been adversely affected by undercapitalisation and needed an injection of funds for resuscitation.

As a result, it has been unable to meet its planned increase in haulage of freight traffic during the furst half of the current financial year.

Between July and December 2016, Tazara transported 74,122 tonnes of freight, being 31 per cent higher than between January and June 2016.

However, though the figures were better than the one for the previous period, they still remained at only 35.5 per cent of the planned 208,602 tonnes in the period under review.

In terms of interstate passenger trains, 278,019 passengers were transported during the first half of 2016/17 compared with 207,090 passengers in the corresponding first half of 2015/16.

The Dar es Salaam commuter train transported 1,389,590 passengers compared with 841,894 in the corresponding first half of 2015/16.

The board recommended that the services be improved. Zambian and Tanzanian permanent secretaries are the board’s chair and deputy chair respectively. The two permanent secretaries rotate the chairmanship annually, at the beginning of each calendar year. There are four board members — two from each country. They are appointed basing on theirexperience either in transport, commerce, industry or finance.

“We commend the management for the service improvement,’’ a joint communiqué by Zambian transport permanent secretary Misheck Lungu and his Tanzanian counterpart Dr Leonard Chamuriho said yesterday.

The board also acknowledged the injection by shareholding governments of working capital in Tazara which led to the stabilisation of operations and enabled the steady supply of fuel.