By REBECCA  MUSHOTA –

GOVERNMENT is in the process of rehabilitating Mununga Quarry in Mpika to help reduce the cost of operations and earn income for Tanzania Zambia Railways (TAZARA).
The plant has not been operating at full capacity.
Mununga Quarry and the Kaole Quarry in Mbeya of Tanzania are the two quarries owned by TAZARA.
The two plants were able to produce high quality ballast as the main product for railway maintenance while aggregates, chippings, boulders, quarry and crusher dust were produced as by-products and sold to the public.
However, due to obsolete machinery, the Mununga Quarry produced way less than it was built for prompting TAZARA to at times purchase quarry products from other suppliers.
Transport, Works and Supply Deputy Minister James Kapyanga said in an interview that as a way to sustain operations at TAZARA, Government was in the process of resuscitating the Mununga Quarry.
“The cost of running TAZARA is high and as a way of reducing the cost, we are in the process of resuscitating Mununga Quarry,” he said.
He said the stone mined at the quarry could also be sold to contractors who were into road construction.
The Mununga and the Kaole plants had the capacity to produce more than 2,000 tonnes of quarry products per hour each.
Mr Kapyanga said Government was working on resuscitating Mununga Quarry and once the paper work was done, the quarry would be operational soon.
Reopening Mununga Quarry was one of the things Government was doing to recapitalize TAZARA.
He said Government was also working on rehabilitating the main railway line.
Mr Kapyanga said the line was vandalised and required rehabilitation.
He said for the railway company to run efficiently, it was important to rehabilitate the main line.
TAZARA would procure new locomotives and wagons as another way of recapitalizing the company.