NRZ to move six million tonnes of traffic

In an interview yesterday soon after completing the first half of the NRZ general manager’s national line tour of stations and infrastructure, Mr Masikati said the traffic to be moved was captured from customers at last year’s Stakeholders Consultative Workshop.
He said at all stakeholders’ workshops, NRZ invites its customers and other stakeholders and exchange notes on volumes of traffic to be moved as well as discuss other challenges.
Mr Masikati said NRZ was now in the process of refurbishing                                eight locomotives and more than 700 wagons in anticipation of the business growth.
“As NRZ we only move what is availed to us by industry. We are, however, seeing a bright future where we are hoping for a business boom and a generally better economic performance. We thus need to refurbish eight locomotives and 773 wagons to start to push our capacity upwards.
“We are appealing to our customers to come forward and participate in              the Tripple Ps, that is, the Public Private Partnership investment programme,” he said. “We, however, have the capacity to refurbish our locomotives                   and wagons at our Bulawayo workshop. The equipment and the expertise is there.”
The NRZ spokesperson said the management team met coal-mining companies in Hwange during their tour of the northern line and brokered                   a deal that could result in NRZ ferrying tonnes of coal from the                               coal-mining district to different parts of the country as well as regional export markets.
He said the coal companies that agreed business with NRZ are Hwange Colliery, Hwange Gassification Mining, South Mining, WK Mining and Makomo Resources.
“All the companies promised us business. We will be moving coal to thermal stations in Bulawayo, Kwekwe and in Harare. We are moving a lot of coal from Hwange to even some export markets as far as Maputo in Mozambique. We agreed that if we fail to avail the wagons and locomotives they would charge us. Equally, if they fail to provide the business, we will also charge them,” said Mr Masikati.
The NRZ requires almost $2 billion to rehabilitate infrastructure over a period of 10 years, while in the short to medium term, $395,17 million is needed to restore the infrastructure to acceptable levels of safety and service delivery, according to the parastatal’s general manager, Retired Air Commodore Mike Karakadzai.
“The full rehabilitation and upgrading will be done in the long term                   when more funds, that is, $1,36 billion, are available,” he was quoted as             saying.
Mr Masikati said the annual general manager’s line tours, which started               on 15 February, helps the management team establish the state                                      of the rail infrastructure, by inspecting the rail system, that is, the railway track.
He said the tours also helped in the assessment of equipment to do with the running of trains such as signals, cautions and points machines as well as boost the morale of workers.
“During these tours, we take the opportunity to talk to our staff,                               we update them on the performance of NRZ. We try to make them part                        of the system, in fact we are a team. Together, as a united force, we can achieve a lot.
“We address the workers and let them know of our set targets and even our performance in the past year. They also get to share ideas with the general manager and other top managers and this helps boost the workers’ morale,” said Mr Masikati.
The NRZ spokesperson said “management by walking” was effective in running a big organisation like NRZ as it helped the leaders gather accurate information and make informed decisions.
He said they have been using a trolley to all parts of the rail system on the tour that started in Bulawayo last month to enable the team to cover every part of the rail system.
The team was in Harare yesterday as it prepared to tour Lions Den and Chinhoyi route.
They will also tour the Harare-Mutare rail track as well as visit Bindura and Marondera among other places.
Mr Masikati said they expected to wrap up their tour at the end of this month by visiting sites in Bulawayo.