By RABECCA CHIPANTA –
TANZANIA-ZAMBIA Railway Authority (TAZARA) management has challenged its workers to take advantage of the abundant cargo that is now being presented to the Authority for transportation after a successful marketing campaign last year.
TAZARA managing director Bruno Ching’andu told the TAZARA Master Workers Council (TMWC) that following a successful marketing campaign and a demonstration of the authority’s ability to deliver on time, with maximum safety and security, many customers had now confirmed freight traffic orders in excess of 600,000 tonnes for transportation on both ends of the railway line.
Mr Ching’andu, who was speaking when he officially opened a second meeting of the TMWC earlier this week, commended the workers for working hard to win back the confidence of the customers.
He, however, challenged them to focus on delivering and proving to the public that the Authority was capable of meeting the huge market demand.
“We have to prove our relevance to our shareholders as well as to the public by moving all the freight that has been availed to us,” Mr Ching’andu said. Mr
Ching’andu said although TAZARA was facing capacity constraints, the huge demand for the railway transportation services, coupled with the positive and encouraging goodwill from the Tanzanian and Zambian governments was sufficient to spur every worker to think of creative ways for overcoming the challenges.
He said there was need for workers to be innovative and to think outside the box in order to overcome the capacity constraints.
Mr Ching’andu told the workers that in order to enhance the haulage capacity in the short-term, and considering that funds for re-capitalisation would take long to materialise, management was seeking to increase the fleet of locomotives and wagons through short-term measures such as leasing of the required equipment.
Mr Ching’andu said another way would be allowing other external operators to ply the railway within the few weeks.