TAZARA secures another deal to ferry 18 million litres of fuel to DRC

The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) announced on Sunday that it has secured another deal to ferry 18 million litres of petroleum products from the port of Dar es Salaam to the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the next one year.

Conrad Simuchile, TAZARA head of public relations, said in a statement that TAZARA has signed an agreement with African Fossils Limited of Tanzania to move the 18 million litres of petroleum products from the east African nation's port of Dar es Salaam to DRC.

"The first consignment of about one million litres has already departed the port of Dar es Salaam and we are confident that the initial two million litres will be successfully delivered to the DRC within the next one month," Simuchile said in the statement.

He added: "This import order is particularly key because it fulfills our desire to balance the flow of traffic in both directions of our line as most of the traffic we are currently moving comprises exports from Zambia and DRC."

The fuel order was the second import consignment to be secured within a month, following the transportation order for 48 million litres of petroleum destined for Malawi which TAZARA secured last month.

He said TAZARA's target for this financial year ending 30 June 2017 was to ferry 381,000 tons of cargo, which was a three-fold improvement from 130,000 tons that the railway line has recently hauled in the just ended 2015/2016 financial year.

"We believe we are well on course to turnaround TAZARA's performance, which had dropped to the lowest in the financial year 2014/2015, when a paltry 87,680 tons were transported," said Simuchile.

Last month, TAZARA and the National Railways Company of DRC (SNCC) agreed to aggressively market their services to increase the volume of freight between the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and the DRC.

TAZARA has been going through turbulent times for many years now, but hit the lowest ebb in the 2014/15 financial year when only about 88,000 metric tons of freight were transported, the lowest figure recorded since 1976 when TAZARA operations officially began.

In November last year, TAZARA received four new diesel-electric mainline locomotives and 18 new passenger coaches valued at 22.4 million U.S. dollars.

The new equipment was expected to register a substantial impact on the operations of TAZARA, which has been struggling from diminished capacity due to aged equipment.

Aged between 25-30 years, most mainline locomotives that are currently in operation have outlived their life spans and are frequently breaking down, a situation that has been exacerbated by the authority's failure to adhere to maintenance schedules due liquidity challenges.

Over the years, the passenger service operational levels had dropped drastically to the very minimum, where four trains per week with barely 455,000 passengers were transported in the 2014/2015 financial year, compared to ten years ago when the authority used to run six trains per week and convey more than 900,000 passengers annually.

TAZARA was constructed as a turnkey project between 1970 and 1975 through loan from the People's Republic of China, with commercial operations starting in July 1976, covering 1,860 kilometres from Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to New Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia. Endit