|
Poor state of Tanzania’s rail network worries CTI
2006-01-06 09:23:04
By Pacifique Nkeshimana
The Confederation of Tanzania Industries (CTI) has asked the government to rehabilitate the railway infrastructure in order to enable the manufacturing to maximise its production capacity.
CTI Executive Director Christine Kilindu said in an exclusive interview with The Guardian in Dar es Salaam that the poor state of the infrastructure, especially the Central Line, had adversely affected the distribution of bulk products like cement in the Western and Lake zones.
As a result, the cement industry had not been able to undergo its envisaged growth over the last few years.
’A poor railway network has led to high prices of cement and other bulk products in the Western and Lake zones,’ she said, adding that there was an urgent need for the railway divestiture to be carried out as soon as possible so that rehabilitation could get underway immediately.
Kilindu noted that the tracks on Tanzania’s railway system were so old that they could no longer cope with heavy traffic of freight trains.
It was thus not unusual for cargo destined for the Western and Lake zones to end up in Dodoma, she added.
’Generally, our railway infrastructure is very old…over 90 years old and is in need of urgent and immediate rehabilitation if the manufacturing sector is to thrive.’
Kilindu added that Tanzania’s share of the cement market in Great Lakes countries such as Burundi, DR Congo and Rwanda would have been much bigger had the Central Line been in a better shape.
The manufacturing sector could not grow if it kept finding it difficult to move goods from one part of the country to another and beyond.
The CTI executive director said, however, that improvement of the road network undertaken by the government last year was commendable.
’More roads were built and this helped to stabilise transport costs, despite increases in the prices of fuel and spare parts,’ she said.
|
