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Itai Mazire Harare Bureau
THE government is close to sealing the $450 million loan facility deal from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), for the revival of the country’s railway system.Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Obert Mpofu will present before Cabinet documents detailing how the country will revive its dilapidated railway system through a $450 million loan facility from the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), when it resumes sitting.
Cde Mpofu said his ministry had concluded the first phase of finalising the $450 million loan facility with potential investors who will soon move into the country once the draft paper has been approved by Cabinet.
Early last year the ministry indicated that Zimbabwe was negotiating with the DBSA to get a loan facility to the tune of between $450 million and $700 million to resuscitate the operations of the National Railways of Zimbabwe.
In an interview last week on the sidelines of a tour of the progress made on the construction of the Airport Road, Cde Mpofu said his ministry recently met with representatives from DBSA in relation to the $450 million facility.
“We’ve discussed with DBSA and the process has speeded up in us securing the funds to rehabilitate and revive the country’s railway system.
“Consultations have been made by all the parties that will be involved in the whole process of reviving NRZ. DBSA has assured us that they’re now in the process of identifying companies and contractors who will move into the country to revive NRZ.
“We’ve made progress in this deal and we’re now waiting for Cabinet to resume sitting and we’ll present our paper detailing how the country will benefit from the loan. We need to revive the country’s railways system as a whole.
“In a few weeks time the resuscitation process of NRZ will kick off,” said Cde Mpofu.
Due to the illegal economic sanctions that were imposed on Zimbabwe by the West and its allies resulted in NRZ, which operates 2,700 kilometres of rail network, which interfaces with regional countries failing to sustain its operations.
According to the latest information from NRZ, it has a stock of 160 locomotives and 9,000 wagons. The information by the NRZ management revealed that at least 50 of the locomotives were out of service while 4,500 locomotives needed to be serviced to rejuvenate service provision.
The refurbishment cost for each locomotive is estimated to be worth $750,000.
During the era of the illegal sanctions imposed on Zimbabwe, the NRZ was forced to shut down the electric railway network between Dabuka and Harare. The vandals as a result ended up looting overhead copper cables.
It has since been estimated that the parastatal needs a minimum of $270 million. NRZ has just one functional electric locomotive out of the 10 it had on its fleet. The parastatal’s carrying capacity has declined from 18 million tonnes to 6 million tonnes per year.
Over the past years economists have indicated that NRZ needs at least $2 billion for it to be fully operational.
The government early last year approached DBSA seeking funds to resuscitate the parastatal.
In September 2014, speaking during a Chronicle business breakfast meeting in Bulawayo, Cde Mpofu warned NRZ employees to halt strikes as this would stifle their negotiations with potential investors and DBSA.
Online Reporter