DAR ES SALAAM, Tanzania–The Tanzania Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) Council of Ministers, has directed the Board of Directors and management to work out a framework for incorporating private sector participation in the Authority’s operations and future investment plans.The meeting was co-chaired by Yamfwa Mukanga, the Minister responsible for Transport in Zambia and his Tanzanian counterpart Dr. Harrison Mwakyembe.
The proposal to engage the private sector was mooted as a way of re-capitalising TAZARA and raising working capital. It was agreed that both governments are finding it difficult to justify the continued injecting tax payers’ money into TAZARA, when the venture had the potential to be self-sustaining.
“We simply cannot continue running TAZARA in a manner that does not inspire confidence. We have the obligation to turn this institution around and start running it as a business, generating sufficient revenues to meet operational costs and making profits,” Mrs Ngoma, the Zambian transport permanent secretary said.
Her Tanzanian counterpart, Dr Shabaan Mwinjaka told management to change their mindsets and adopt a different approach to the way of conducting business.
“We are actively revising our five-year strategic plan to look for investment funding elsewhere and possibly invite non-equity private investments. We have not one, but many players who understand TAZARA well and have expressed very keen interest in forging efforts with the Authority.” Engineer Ronald Phiri, the TAZARA managing director said.
