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Dr Gumbo

Freedom Mupanedemo in KWEKWE
THE Midlands Province is key to the revival of National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) as most companies strategic to rail and road business are in the province, Transport and Infrastructure Development Minister Dr Joram Gumbo has said.

Addressing delegates before touring Kwekwe Train Station and Zimasco yesterday, Minister Gumbo said work to resuscitate NRZ was on course and that the Midlands remains a critical source market for the rail business.

He said Government was working with a new investor, a consortium led by the Diaspora Infrastructure Group (DIDG) and South Africa’s Transnet to revive the NRZ and the partners were now touring the country’s major rail stations including Dabuka in Gweru, which is the largest marshal yard in Southern Africa, to assess work that needs to be done.

“It is now public knowledge that Government has found a partner, DIDG consortium for funding the revival of NRZ. We seek to turn around our national railways and the first step is to tour our major train stations as well as reaching out to companies that work hand in hand with NRZ and most of them are here in the Midlands Province,” he said. Minister Gumbo said turning around the NRZ was a priority. He said they must be change in the movement of goods and passengers in the country.

“We want to bring back the glory days of our National Railways. Today NRZ is on its knees not because of sanctions, but because we have been lacking innovation and commitment on the part of the employees. Now the employees are owed huge sums of money in salary arrears.

“It is, however, no magic for us to turn around the fortunes of NRZ and I want to assure the nation that they will soon begin to see a change in the movement of passenger and goods trains,” he said. Minister Gumbo said as part of reviving the NRZ, Government will remove copper and aluminium cables, which are prone to vandalism and replace them with other material. The NRZ signal system will also be upgraded with new modern system.

“They will also be replacing wood rail slippers with concrete slippers. What also needs to be upgraded is our signal system with is very poor. The reason why we are touring these strategic areas in the Midlands is to get an appreciation of the state of our infrastructure so that we start working on it,” he said.

Minister Gumbo said companies such as Zimasco, Sable Chemicals and ZPC Munyati were critical in the revival of NRZ as they provide the parastatal with load. NRZ general manager Engineer Lewis Mukwada chipped in saying: “Zimasco is already giving us business. When they resumed exporting ferro-chrome, we entered into an agreement.

“We also have Sable Chemicals, where we are ferrying most of their ammonium to South Africa and we expect business with these companies to improve as we work on the resuscitation of NRZ,” he said.