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Development of rail transport essential for industrial development
2006-11-08 08:51:25
By GERALD KITABU
Sekirasa, Director General of Surface and Marine Transport Regulatory Authority (Sumatra), the body that oversees both land and marine transport services. Excerpts:
Question: Would you mind explaining the rationale behind establishment of SUMATRA?
Answer: The rationale in establishing SUMATRA was to privatise certain governmental institutions enabling them to act independently without any government control and thereby delegating regulatory powers to these independent authorities.
The benefit of adopting this structure was so as to enable these institutions to be able to function more competently and efficiently.
There was also the concept of promoting independent regulation so that investors will be subjected to an independent authority set of guidelines and rules.
This would ultimately result in the investor being dealt with fairly and professionally without government intervention.
Q: SUMATRA was set up to oversee and regulate over a wide spectrum within the transportation sector namely the railway, roads and ports. Why is air transportation not included?
A: Initially the idea was to merge all transportation and telecommunication systems to be governed by a single supervisory agency. However, it emerged that this would be too extensive and difficult to manage.
Air transport traditionally had an independent global regulatory framework in terms of sector administration and therefore it was left to stand on its own and given the requisite autonomy so as to operate within the already established global framework.
Q: How would you assess the level of surface transport infrastructure in this country? Would you consider attractive to prospective investors?
A: Land transport system is still experiencing enormous problems and there is room for improvement.
This will facilitate reduction of transport costs making it easier for investors to undertake their investment endeavours in Tanzania.
Q. Why are you advocating for improvement of rail transport in a country that predominantly uses road transport?
A: I agree with you entirely that more efforts are being spent on the development of raliways. However, if we are going to explore coal and iron, they cannot be feasibly moved by road. They should ideally be transported on the rail system.
As advisors to the government, our objective is to convince government to avoid concentrating on road at the expense of railway development.
Most of the big commodities like coal and cement still rely on rail transportation hence, the need to improve the railway system.
Q: What challenges do you face in developing and improving the transport system oversees?
A: One of the main challenges is to changing the mindset of our people and operators. For this we have established a forum whereby we bring together the main players within the transport industry.
We call it, \”The Transport and Shipping Forum.\” It brings together the ports operators, railway operators and road transporters so that for each segment efficiency becomes the key target.
Efficiency can be achieved by automating the system, that is to say cutting down the level of human intervention in addressing the cargo for example. This will reduce time consumption thereby avoiding delays.
We need to oversee the processes in a way that is more efficient.
We need to encourage and advocate for the creation of innovative ideas that will promote efficiency in light of the global market as we are competing with our international counterparts on efficiency and quality service and not only on non-tariff barriers.
If we have the right infrastructure in place, motivated employees and enhanced working environment will contribute to efficiency.
Q: In your view can the transport network in Tanzania be developed using private or international capital?
A: I think we still lack proper policy framework to bring on board private capital to be utilised in the development process of the Tanzanian transportation systems.
For the time being we are more dependent on donor partners.
Private capital can do a lot and we should advocate for it.
We could encourage private investors to put up infrastructure utilising their own capital and charging fees for the road service by putting up toll stations.
The Tanzanian government can build the roads but we lack the capacity to maintain the roads.
Q: Do you think it is possible for Tanzania to achieve the improved country economic status set for the year 2025?
A: In my opinion it is possible.
The government is committed to invest in development of the transport sector.
At the same time we still have to decide on what is the most effective and efficient energy source.
We seek to develop and utilise other alternative energy sources that would be efficient, reliable and readily accessible.
Q. In your opinion why is Tanzania attracting more and more investors despite the insufficient energy supply and poor transport networks?
A: Tanzania is a safe investment harbour. It is one of the most stable governed states in Africa. It is a country where democracy has flourished over the past decade.
Tanzania has a proper legal framework in almost every sector and investors are protected by the Constitution which contains provisions that seek to protect private investments.
The people of Tanzania are friendly. We have professionally trained people very well conversant in a number of fields and therefore the investors do not have to come with a large number of expatriates.
Tanzania is privileged to have appealing geographical attractions such as the highest mountain in Africa, Mount Kilimanjaro.
Tanzania also has the largest game reserve the Serengeti national park, as well as the Ngorongoro crater just to mention a few. Tanzania has a lot of mining potential too.
What is needed is for investors to come forward and present proposals that will benefit both investors and Tanzanians.
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