adminMunyaradzi Musiiwa Midlands Correspondent
Good times are beckoning for Gweru-based rail sleeper manufacturer, Fort Concrete after receiving a 10 000 sleepers’ order from National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) as part of its rail track rehabilitation programme.
Fort Concrete, which recently got a capital injection of $3 million form Diaspora Infrastructure Development Group (DIDG) to upgrade its manufacturing plant, is also supposed to supply one million sleepers that are required for the entire rail rehabilitation.
DIDG won the $400 million tender to recapitalise and operate the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) together with Transnet of South Africa.
In an interview, DIDG executive chairman Mr Donovan Chimhandamba said the company intends to set up a new and modern plant at Fort Concrete and increase its production capacity to about 880 sleepers a day.
“We are looking to spend more than $3 million on the plant revitalisation exercise. We are bringing in new equipment. We are bringing in a batch mixing plant because the one which is there is obsolete. We are going to bring in modernised equipment.
“As we speak, we are producing 300 slippers a day. We have an order of 10 000 slippers from NRZ. But for the track rehabilitation project, we need about 1 million slippers,” he said.
Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Joram Gumbo said Fort Concrete will be a game changer in the construction industry.
Online Reporter