The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) has said it has secured an order from Malawi to move 48 million litres of petroleum products from Tanzania's port of Dar es Salaam in the next 12 months, starting from July this year.

A statement issued by TAZARA said the order was made during a meeting between the authority's officials and officials from the Malawian government held on June 20.

The statement said the Malawian government delegation was headed by Estelle Nuka, Board member of the Malawi Energy Regulation Authority.

"TAZARA has the best management team to compete with any in the world and was fully geared to take the firm to another level," Bruno Ching'andu, TAZARA's new Managing Director, told the Malawian delegation.

The statement said TAZARA was also in discussion with the Zambian government and another private firm to begin transporting at least 14 million litres of fuel per month from the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to Zambia and the Democratic Republic of Congo starting in July.

Since joining TAZARA in April 2016, Ching'andu has instilled discipline in the railway operations, with the firm now registering consistent and shorter transit times in freight trains as well as passenger trains, an impediment that tended to drive clients away in the past.

The new Managing Director has also ordered his management team to be customer-centric, giving maximum respect to the clients and being responsive to their needs.

Last week, TAZARA and the National Railways Company of Democratic Republic of Congo (SNCC) agreed to aggressively market their services to increase the volume of freight between the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the DRC.

TAZARA has been going through turbulent times for many years now, but hit the lowest ebb in the 2014/15 financial year when only about 88,000 metric tons of freight were transported, the lowest figure recorded since 1976 when TAZARA operations officially began.

In November last year, TAZARA received four new diesel-electric mainline locomotives and 18 new passenger coaches valued at 22.4 million U.S. dollars.

The new equipment was expected to register a substantial impact on the operations of TAZARA, which has been struggling from diminished capacity due to aged equipment.

Aged between 25-30 years, most mainline locomotives that are currently in operation have outlived their life spans and are frequently breaking down, a situation that has been exacerbated by the authority's failure to adhere to maintenance schedules due liquidity challenges.

Over the years, the passenger service operational levels had dropped drastically to the very minimum, where four trains per week with barely 455,000 passengers were transported in the 2014/2015 financial year, compared to ten years ago when the authority used to run six trains per week and convey more than 900,000 passengers annually.

TAZARA was constructed as a turnkey project between 1970 and 1975 through an interest-free loan of 500 million U.S. dollars from China, with commercial operations starting in July 1976, covering 1,860 kilometres from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia

source : xinhua