Minister for Transport, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe
The Minister for Transport, Dr Harrison Mwakyembe, said on Tuesday that the preparations for the construction of the railway lines were going on well.
He mentioned the railway lines to be constructed as that of the Northern zone of Tanga-Arusha -Musoma and Southern zone of Mtwara-Mchuchuma-Liganga-Mbambabay.
He said apart from the plans to construct the new railway lines, the government will embark on intensive rehabilitation of the central railway line so that it could operate at its maximum capacity as it was in previous years.
Clarifying further on the new railway lines, Dr Mwakyembe stated that the Tanga-Arusha-Musoma line will cost about three billion US dollars while that of the Southern zone would consume 3.6 billion US dollars.
Dr Mwakyembe was responding to questions from transport stakeholders who wanted to know, apart from other things, what the government was doing or will do to improve the transport sector especially construction of new railway lines which would ease goods transportation within and outside the country.
The Tanga stakeholders also wanted to get further information on two big projects of the construction of the new Mwambani port and railway lines of which Dr Mwakyembe said, the process had reached a good stage and that the railway line project are penciled to take off next year.
He said the government considers the project as economically viable that is why it is determined to embark on them, to boost the growth of the country’s economy and neighbouring land locked countries that need an easy way for their transit goods from Tanzanian ports.
“We have already got a contractor, a Chinese firm known as ‘China Railway Number Two Engineering,’ is the one which constructed the Tanzania-Zambia Railway line popularly known as TAZARA now our experts are still going through some final analysis before submitting to the government for the work to start so we are moving,” he stated.
He further said that the railway line will pass through all areas which are economically viable in order to make the line more economical feasible in future, something which would also attract more investors and increase the volume of business.
Speaking about Mwambani port project, Dr Mwakyembe said that the project is still on preparations though much efforts were being directed to improving the present Tanga port which is the second largest port in the country, in order to increase its capacity in handling cargo and offer better service to customers.
According to Mr Mwakyembe the government is determined on infrastructural development projects in transport sector, to contribute to the country’s economic growth.
The minister who was on a one day tour to study the development of Tanga port was accompanied by the Tanzania Port Authority (TPA) Board Chairman Prof Joseph Msambichako and TPA acting managing director Eng Kipande Madeni. source In2Africa
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