I have been looking at Zimbabwe’s potential in various economic sectors including agriculture, mining and infrastructure and I am dumbfounded at the extent of the potential that has been arrested by Zanu (PF) and its economic policies over the last 34 years. These people have destroyed so much. This is a monumental crime against Zimbabweans.
This week, I want to give my readers an idea of how incredible our future can be without Mugabe. I want to look at our railway system, which is being hugely underutilised. Like everything else, it has been neglected – yet it is an incredible economic asset for the country going forward.
The National Railways of Zimbabwe was established in 1897 and has about 2,800 km of rail that needs to be replaced as it has exceeded its 30 year life span. It was originally designed to ferry a capacity of 18 million tons of goods per annum and employed 23,000 people full time at its peak. In 2007, for example, it ferried 17 million passengers. It is currently operating at about 15% of its potential capacity, if not less. On the freight side, in 1990, the total amount of freight carried by rail was 14.3 million tons, which translated into a capacity utilisation rate of about 80% compared to the current 2 million tons per annum.
The system has three well-connected hubs, Bulawayo, Gweru, and Harare. The railway is at the centre of the international rail routes linking the DRC, Zambia, Botswana, Mozambique and its ports of Beira and Maputo, and South Africa and its ports of Durban, Richards Bay and Port Elizabeth.
It is also at the centre of shorter and cost-effective transport links between Malawi and Zambia and the Mozambican and South African ports. The line from Zambia through Victoria Falls, the line from Botswana through Plumtree, the line from South Africa through Beitbridge, and the line to the central parts of Zimbabwe through Gweru meet at Bulawayo, where the NRZ headquarters is located.
The north-south main line from South Africa into Zimbabwe joins the network at Gweru while the line from Mozambique through Mutare joins the network in Harare.
As a regional hub, NRZ was designed to facilitate easy movement of minerals, agricultural products and inputs at very competitive pricing compared to road transport, which is almost double the rail cost per ton per kilometre.
Ferrying goods using rail not only cheaper, it also means that the cost of maintaining our road networks is reduced considerably and more important, it makes our products, be they imports or exports, more competitive.
The African Development Bank has recommended the rehabilitation of the railway network and restructuring of the industry through the creation of a new public entity that would own, maintain, and manage the basic track infrastructure, the restructuring of NRZ into a private railway services company and the award of concessions for freight and passenger services on the entire rail network.
Experts say the rehabilitation of the entire line would take about 20 years and employ a huge number of our young folk. In addition, the steel required would result in huge benefits to local steel companies. In order to rehabilitate our railway system we would also need new rolling stock, the repair of signalling systems, massive training of technicians and competent management at the top. Increased use of rail rather than road would result in massive savings on road maintenance and trade costs. This would also relieve pressure and costs at our border posts and improve the flow of goods in and out of the country.
The management model can be that of giving concessions to private operators and I think we must look at a model where we can also facilitate the participation by local communities in the opportunities presented by such an approach. We will also have to revive our agriculture sector and mining sectors so that we can create the necessary linkages.
The African Development Bank estimated that we will need close to $2 billion to revive our railway system, which isn’t much given its multiplier effect to the economy. In fact, if we had a government with integrity we could really finance this on our own from our minerals revenues.
We all know what the problem is that we lack visionary political leadership. It is important that we are all aware of our country’s enormous potential and we must therefore do what we can to ensure that we have leaders who not only appreciate this but are well aware of what has to be done to make it a reality.
Our future is so bright – if only Mugabe would let go.
– Vince Musewe is an economist and author based in Harare. You can contact him at vtmusewe@gmail.com
Post published in: Opinions