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TAZARA trains resume operations as court declares strike unlawful

Xinhua, January 17, 2015 Adjust font size:

Train operations by the ailing Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA), which were suspended on Monday following an employees strike, resumed on Friday.

TAZARA said in a statement the resumption of the train operations between Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and New Kapiri-Mposhi in Zambia followed the High Court of Tanzania's Labor Division's ruling declaring the strike by TAZARA workers in Tanzania unlawful.

"The court also ordered that the employees are permanently restrained from conducting illegal strikes in future," said the statement.

The statement said that TAZARA has managed to source funds to pay all the employees their salary arrears, which were a subject of the strike both in Zambia and Tanzania.

The statement said TAZARA workers in both countries have resumed work immediately.

TAZARA on Monday announced suspension of all train operations between Tanzania and Zambia following the strike by employees of the railway line.

TAZARA employees in Tanzania and Zambia on Monday opted to strike demanding for the immediate payment of their unpaid salaries covering the last five months.

Conrad Simuchile, TAZARA head of public relations, said in a statement that the suspension of train operations between the two destinations will remain until further notice.

TAZARA management has instructed all stations to refund intending passengers who were booked to travel on this week, he said.

In December 2014, TAZARA Council of Ministers resolved to immediately inject 25 million U.S. dollars to save the 1,860- kilometre railway line from total collapse.

The TAZARA Council of Ministers had noted with concern the falling performance of the authority to record low levels of less than 300,000 tons of freight per year in the recent past from the peak of 1.2 million tons a year in the late 1980s.

TAZARA was constructed as a turnkey project between 1970 and 1975 through an interest-free loan of 500 million U.S. dollars from China, with commercial operations starting in July 1976, covering the 1,860 km from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. Endi