BR hands over lucrative contract to private firm

The deal includes hauling of Botash’s salt and soda ash under a 25-year arrangement that will see Baaitse’s Life Compass Botswana and its partners supply and finance locomotives and rolling stock while taking 70% of the profits generated from the operation. The deal comes after a turbulent period in which an earlier P25 million arrangement involving Baaitse’s company and BR was cancelled, triggering a dispute that remains the subject of settlement talks.

The businessman says the agreement followed a Request for Proposals and subsequent Invitation to Tender (ITT) by the BR earlier this year,