AfricaPress-Tanzania: THE Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (Tazara) collected $27.52m revenue in 2019/20 fiscal year, thanks to improved cargo traffic, the railway authority has said in a statement.
The statement released after the 115th Tazara Board of Directors virtual meeting last week said cargo volumes went up, by four per cent to 182,302 metric tonnes from 175,597 metric tonnes in the 2018/19 fiscal year.
With the addition of 196,676 metric tonnes moved by Calabash Freight Ltd, through Open Access operations, total line capacity utilisation for 2019/20 aggregated 378,978 metric tonnes, up by 4.5 per cent from a cumulative volume of 362,710 metric tonnes recorded in the previous fiscal year, the statement said.
However, passenger traffic between the two countries declined by nine per cent due to the outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic, which forced the railway authority to suspend cross-border passenger trains from March 2020 up to now.
This resulted in a decline in passenger volume from 3,046,002 passengers transported in the 2018/19 fiscal year to 2,778,708 in 2019/20, said the statement.
According to the statement, Tazara Board of Directors reviewed the performance of the railway authority for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2020 and noted a four-per cent improvement in freight traffic year on year.
The board observed that the performance was suppressed by limitations arising from insufficient and unreliable locomotives and wagons and two landslides that occurred during the fiscal year, forcing the closure of the line for considerable periods.
The board approved $48m for Tazara’s 2020/21 fiscal year operational budget and adopted a resolution to request for $558m of investment funding under the revitalisation bankable business plan from shareholders, said the statement.
Tazara was constructed as a turnkey project between 1970 and 1975 through an interest-free loan from China, with commercial operations starting in July 1976.
