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Oliver Kazunga
Bulawayo Bureau
THE National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) is targeting to move three million tonnes of freight this year driven by a host of strategies, including stakeholder support, human capital and culture realignment.

Last year, the parastatal transported 2 191 million tonnes of cargo against a target of three million tonnes.

The projected freight was largely weighed down by factors such as Covid-19 induced operational challenges, unreliable locomotive and wagon shortages, and dilapidated rail network, which resulted in frequent derailments.

According to a report on NRZ freight target for 2022, the parastatal said: “2022 performance targets are anchored on human capital and culture realignment where the organisation will finalise the restructuring exercise to align the organisation structure to the current business trends and step-up culture change programme to ensure staff attitudes are directed towards attainment of organisational goals.”

At present, the parastatal which has more than 4 000 workers, has embarked on a restructuring exercise that has already seen over 280 workers being redeployed to other departments that are understaffed.

A total of 762 workers will be affected by the ongoing restructuring initiative.

NRZ general manager Ms Respina Zinyanduko has assured the employees that no job losses will be suffered on account of the initiative that the Second Republic has approved and believes would capacitate the entity towards contributing to the attainment of Vision 2030.

Under Vision 2030, the Government targets transforming Zimbabwe into an upper middle-income economy with a gross domestic product per capita of US$3 500.

Furthermore, the restructuring initiative has seen the parastatal last year clearing a nine-year salary backlog amounting to over $320 million having accrued a salary logjam of about US$80 million by 2018.

NRZ said the anticipated freight volumes was also hinged on the market’s willingness to work with rail.

“Thus, the current restructuring efforts should create internal value and room for rates adjustments and ensure business is retained and attracted to rail,” it said.

The restoration of operating capacity through customer assisted projects and in the main sovereign assistance for a comprehensive recapitalisation to arrest the continued decline in performance is also expected to the growth in cargo volumes this year.

To achieve the desired three million freight target, NRZ said: “Inter-parastatal support programmes such coal for the Zimbabwe Power Company, grains for the Grain Marketing Board (GMB), fertilisers for the Chemplex Group should be moved by rail 100 percent.”

Priority should also be on increased thrust to safely and timely deliver customer traffic through dedication and ring-fencing of capacity (wagons and wagons) for the top five commodities including coal, chrome, Lowveld sugar operations, clinker and grains when available.

According to the NRZ report, the parastatal targets to maintain an upward trajectory in freight volumes between January and April.

At the end of this month, NRZ expects to move 164 000 tonnes of freight while in February the cargo volumes are expected at 175 000  tonnes.

In March, the parastatal anticipates to move 179 000 tonnes before increasing the volumes to 231 000 in April while in May the freight volumes will decrease to 229 000 tonnes before spiking to 336 000 tonnes in June.

In July, the cargo volumes will improve to 338 000 tonnes before declining to 321 000 tonnes in August while in September and October the figures will stand at 313 000 and 311 000, respectively.

The downward trajectory is also expected to continue until the end of the year with NRZ expected to move 243 000 tonnes in November and 158 000 tonnes in December.

At its peak in the late 1990s, NRZ moved 18 million tonnes of cargo annually.
The parastatal’s operational performance has largely been adversely affected by the prevailing macro-economic environment.