Tanzania will Open Access for Railway Operating

Sumatra director of railways Dr Michael Kisaka says the objective is to create a competitive environment in the transport sector. Except for the jointly-owned 1,960km Tanzania-Zambia line, all the railways in the country are in the hands of state-owned Reli Assets Holding Company (Rahco), including the Tanga line and the Moshi-Arusha line, neither of which is currently operating.

Already four companies have shown interest in operating the Rahco infrastructure, Dr Kisaka says. For instance, Rahco reportedly signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with South Africa’s Kifaru Rail Limited (KRL) for the provision of railway services in Tanzania.

KRL said that it would [quote font=”georgia” font_size=”19″]”soon be operating on the Central Line between Dar es Salaam, Kigoma, Mwanza and Tanga in Tanzania. In 2015, the World Bank approved $US300 million in funds from the International Development Association (IDA) to help the government of Tanzania in creating a reliable open access railway infrastructure on the Dar es Salaam-Isaka section of the East African Central Corridor and to strengthen the country’s rail agencies’ ability to manage the infrastructure and traffic operations. The financing will support the intermodal and rail development project designed to increase the reliability of the rail infrastructure and the train operations; strengthen logistics in the port of Dar es Salaam and the rail terminals; and strengthen rail operations.The funds will be used for relaying tracks, building new intermodal terminals, repairing or reconstructing bridges and supporting the institutional transformation of the sector. [/quote]

Tanzania is a transport hub for its landlocked neighbouring countries like Zambia, DR Congo, Rwanda, Burundi and Uganda.