Botswana Railways disposes of rail equipment

ISAIAH MOREWAGAE
Staff Writer | Thursday May 6, 2010 00:00

 

BR this week, invited tenders from reputable and experienced companies for disposal of eight non air conditioned passenger coaches, five locomotives, six livestock wagons, seven guard vans, in Mahalapye as well as one Rail car in Gaborone.

During the last parliamentary session, Assistant Minister of Agriculture, Oreeditse Molebatsi expressed shock that BR was contemplating selling the coaches to Mozambique and dismissed government's position about the problems, describing them as exaggerated. In his opinion the coaches could still be used in the next decade.

He criticised government for failing to manage a 400km railway line and attributed the increase of road accidents to the absence of a passenger train.

Molebatsi, a former General Manager of BR said the coaches of a passenger train have a lifespan of 40 years and wondered why the passenger train had been stopped so abruptly.

MP for Lobatse, Nehemiah Modubule also questioned why President Ian Khama told the House in his State of the Nation address last year that government was doing something to reintroduce the train, while the Finance Minister, Kenneth Matambo, and Transport Minister, Frank Ramsden were silent on the matter.

Nkange MP, Edwin Batshu requested that government allocate more funds to BR to help in its operations.

Making his presentation, Ramsden said that BR was running at a loss of P29.113 million. 'The losses are mainly attributed to overhaul and maintenance costs of locomotives and wagons as well as other costs associated with train operations like fuel and wagon hire,' he said.

The losses led to the discontinuation of the passenger train last year, the minister continued.

He added that a turnaround strategy was being implemented and recapitalisation would be critical. Ramsden said that BR is at an advanced stage of developing a shopping mall on its land at the Gaborone Station.

'This is a viable project with anticipated/projected positive cash flows. The project commenced in February 2010 with completion planned for March 2011,' he told the House.