According to a public notice this week, the rail utility is seeking service providers who can collaborate or partner in passenger rail services provision. The expressions of interest are reserved for citizen-owned companies.
“Expression of Interest is sought to source service providers from the market to express interest in a partnership or collaboration opportunity to provide passenger train services,” reads the notice.
While Botswana Railways did not provide further details on the partnership or collaboration it is seeking, Transport and Public Works Minister Eric Molale told BusinessWeek previously that government was looking at various options to bring the private sector into the rail sector.
“We are looking at various prospects of resuscitating that line,” he said in a wide-ranging interview in December. “There is this hunger, thirst for the return of the passenger train and we are working hard. “We are allowing Rovos tourist train to use our rail line, a tourist train from SA that does come here. “They go to Victoria Falls and from there, it passes by Beitbridge, and we can easily allow our own local enterprises to run a train like that. “Why would it be easier to allow a foreign private rail company to traverse our country and then make it difficult for our own people?”
Molale also hinted that the entry of the private sector into rail services was part of a broader plan to unbundle Botswana Railways.
“Despite our small railway company, we are looking at the possibility of privatisation such that we divide it into three; the line, the running stock and the business along the rail like other railways that are building malls and other things. “They can equally build points of interest and other things along the rail line,” he said.
The passenger train service, popularly known as the Blue Train, was suspended in January 2020 due to running losses as expenses grossly exceeded the service’s revenues.
Molale told BusinessWeek that while the service was unprofitable, it enjoyed strong demand from the public.
“This train was running before COVID and we stopped it for reasons of the pandemic. “But we didn’t take care of it; we left it to be vandalised and all that and to put it back to use will require a lot of money. “We are looking at various prospects of resuscitating that line, and as I said earlier, you just saw the pleasure train to Sowa. “The uptake was unbelievable. “Right now, when the schools are closing, parents are forced to drive quickly to Francistown, drop kids there, and come back to work. “Previously, they would put them on the train in first or second class knowing they would be taken care of,” he said.
