Eastward railway project revived
Brian Benza | Tuesday September 6, 2016 18:00
At a meeting held in Bulawayo, Zimbabwe last Friday, ministers from the three countries signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) committing them to the Port Techobanine Heavy Haul Rail Project.
Zimbabwe’s minister of transport and infrastructural development, Joram Gumbo, Mozambique’s minister of transport and communications Carlos Alberto Mesquita and minister of minerals, energy and water resources Kitso Mokaila signed the agreement.
The Port Techobanine Inter-regional Heavy Haul Railway project is expected to facilitate investment in mining, transport and manufacturing sectors as an alternative route from the South African ports.
In an interview with Mmegi Business yesterday, Mokaila said the MOU facilitates for the private sector to take a leading role in the project.
“The expectation is for the private sector to carry out the project. From here, the private sector will conduct a feasibility study and come up with something that can be bankable. The MOU will also help us regularise laws, as the rail line will pass through three countries. It should be a borderless project,” he said.
The rail line will stretch from Francistown through Zimbabwe to the port facilitating trade of commodities for Botswana through the eastern route.
The three countries signed a similar MOU in 2011 but since then, not much has taken place on the ground with the respective ministers failing to meet regularly.
Among goods to be carried on this corridor are fresh produce, fertilisers, crude oil and derivatives as well as minerals, notably coal. Land-locked Botswana will also use the railway line and the port of Maputo to import fuel, diversifying its fuel import routes to reduce its dependence on South African supplies.
Already there is an existing line, which has a capacity to carry about two million tonnes of goods per annum. Under the new project, Mokaila said the railway line wil be upgraded to carry as much as 12 million tonnes per annum. According to the minister, the MOU also brings on board the state-owned railway companies from the three countries to work together in the standardisation of the costs.
Although Mokaila said the cost of the projects will be determined by the feasibility studies, reports from Zimbabwe estimate the railway line to cost about $600 million, with each country contributing $200 million.
Techobanine lies 70 kilometres south of the port of Maputo and 20 kilometres from Ponta do Ouro on the South African border.
The project will be undertaken on a concession basis for its various components. The port complex is designed to process 200 million tonnes of diverse cargo per year, from general to bulk and passengers. As part of more efforts to diversify its trade routes, Botswana is currently involved in the development of the Trans-Kalahari Railway (TKR) with Namibia, a public-private partnership project partly aimed at increasing private sector involvement in the development of the countries’ economy.
Mokaila also said he will now handover facilitation of the project to the ministry of transport and communication. “Initially the project was meant to drive, mostly coal exports but since its scope has been expanded to become a multi commodity railway line, the minister of transport and communications will now take over,” he said.