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Leonard Ncube, Sunday News Reporter
THE Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport and Infrastructural Development has called on the Government to expedite the revival of NRZ, noting that its recapitalisation will save the country’s roads from being damaged by haulage trucks carrying heavy cargo.
The committee that toured NRZ properties in Bulawayo, Dete, Hwange and Victoria Falls expressed concern at the bad state of the Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Highway which is heavily damaged by haulage trucks carrying coal from Hwange.
The committee chair, Cde Knowledge Kaitano, who is Mudzi West Member of Parliament said Parliament was going to interrogate why coal miners were opting for road transport instead of rail transport.
He said the recapitalisation of NRZ was going to be put into perspective where questions around capacity and the company offering competitive terms were going to be discussed.
Cde Kaitano said they were impressed by the fact that NRZ has its own experts in its workshops, although obsolete technology used by the parastatal was worrisome.
“We have been touring properties and activities of NRZ and what we have seen is quite eye-opening as it is a business unit which is very important. What is critical for NRZ is for them to be capitalised and modernised.
“In Hwange, we realised that NRZ has not been favoured by the coal miners who use their own transport to carry coal even though NRZ has offered much cheaper rates. This has become so worrisome because the haulage trucks are damaging the
Bulawayo-Victoria Falls Road. The road is so much in bad shape.
“Our roads will not survive and the cost to Zimbabwe is not just forfeiture of business from NRZ but also destruction of our road network. That has become worrisome, it’s something that we need to look into as legislators,” said Cde Kaitano.
He said Parliament has closely looked at NRZ’s market competitiveness and is convinced that the parastatal can be competitive.
“We are going to interrogate this further to see where the bottlenecks are and why transporters are opting to destroy our roads,” he said.
The committee chair said everyone has to help NRZ address its challenges.
NRZ board chair, Advocate Mike Madiro said the state entity was critical on the logistics side as Government implements the National Development Strategy 1 towards an Upper Middle Income Society by 2030.
He said Parliament has an oversight role over Government and public service.
“We have challenges and there is no doubt about that. We need to provide logistics solutions to the country’s agenda. Logistics is key to the Government agenda and NRZ is important to achieve that agenda.
“Stabilisation of price regime is one of the key objectives of Government and to achieve that, logistical solutions, competitiveness and efficiency are key. We need to impress upon Treasury and shareholders that we need resource intervention,” said Adv Madiro.
He said NRZ is a sleeping giant and there is evidence that the parastatal can provide logistical solutions to the country’s needs.
He said the tour was organised to ensure Parliament plays its oversight role to help NRZ return to its mandate to provide freight and passenger services.
“Within that mix, we cannot supervise ourselves, so Members of Parliament, on behalf of the people of Zimbabwe had to come in to have that oversight role to see whether we are discharging our mandate.
“The committee is here to have first-hand experience and appreciate the challenges and help us ensure we meet our objective.
They are seeing the gaps that we need to fill and we are happy that they are also realising that we are doing a great job,” he said.
NRZ general manager Ms Respina Zinyanduko said the state entity had embarked on an exercise to identify and evaluate its assets countrywide to realise value from them. -@ncubeleon
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