On new railways and wry smiles

I say ‘wry smile’ because some 25 years ago, a quarter century, I had the honour of being the Board Chairperson of Botswana Railways (BR). 

I had approached the Ministry (of Transport and Communications) with my proposals of expanding the services of BR. I was called to a meeting with three senior officials of the ministry to put forth my views and ideas of the rail network expansion. I proposed that since we were busy constructing a rail line to service the needs of the proposed salt mining area of Sowa we could extend that rail line all the way to Kazungula so that we could become a transportation hub to the markets in Zambia, DRC and even further into central Africa.   The officials rejected my idea saying that the project would not work because there was no ‘bridge’ to cross the Zambezi River and until this was constructed nothing could be done.