TAZARA nods US$555m investment
THE Zambia-Tanzania Railway Authority ( TAZARA) Board of Directors has approved the US$ 555 million investment request to the shareholders under the Revitalisation Bankable Business Plan (RBBP).
And the board also approved the budget proposal for the transportation of 400, 000 metric tonnes of freight traffic and 3, 400, 000 passengers for the financial year ending June 30,2 021 from which US$48.27m operational and non-operating income is projected to be generated to cover operations for the year.
This is contained in a statement issued by TAZARA Head of Public Relations Conrad Simuchile during the 115th Board of Directors Virtual Meeting in Dar-es-Salaam on Wednesday.
During the virtual meeting, various matters pertaining to the operations of the railway firm were deliberated on among them reviewing its performance for the financial year ending June 2020.
The board is confident that the RBBP would provide a strong short-to-medium blueprint for the required transformational actions that are anticipated to turnaround the operations of TAZARA and firmly put the firm on a positive business trajectory.
The investment is also expected to bring out the desired outcome of achieving full operational profitability and self-sustenance by the end of the Financial year 2021-2022 once it is submitted to the shareholders for approval and funding through the
TAZARA Council of Ministers.
TAZARA noted a four percent improvement in freight traffic compared to the previous financial year ending June 30, 2019, during the performance review.
The board observed, however, that the performance was suppressed by limitations arising from insufficient and unreliable rolling stock (locomotives and wagons) and two natural disasters (landslide/ wash-aways) that occurred during the financial year forcing the closure of the line for considerable periods.
Freight traffic volumes transported by TAZARA for the year 2019 increased from 175, 597 metric tonnes in the previous financial year 2018-2019 to 182, 302 metric tonnes in the financial year 2019- 2020.