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Zimbabweans and Bulawayo residents in particular yesterday woke up to refreshing news that government has secured $750 million loan for the National Railways of Zimbabwe. Transport and Infrastructural Development Minister Dr Obert Mpofu said the money being provided by the Development Bank of South Africa (DBSA), is meant to fund the rehabilitation of the entire railway system. Dr Mpofu said government and DBSA will this week conclude the necessary paperwork so that the money meant to recapitalise the struggling parastatal is released. “A lot is being done, we’re talking to DBSA who have agreed to fund the rehabilitation of the entire railway system. It’s a done deal and in the next few days we will be getting the paperwork finalised so that work on the project can start,” said Dr Mpofu.

The rehabilitation involves the overhauling of the railway lines as well as rehabilitation of locomotives. Rail transport is the cheapest and most preferred by industry for bulk movement of goods but of late companies have been forced to use the expensive road transport because NRZ is no longer reliable.

The revival of the industry is therefore directly linked to the rehabilitation of NRZ which is supposed to provide an efficient railway system to move either raw materials or finished goods. Now that government has secured funding for recapitalisation of the NRZ, the challenge on the parastatal’s management is to ensure that the soon to be availed funds are used for their intended purpose.

It is a fact that NRZ has for sometime now not been paying its workers full salaries and as such it owes workers more than $50 million. It is our fervent hope that management will not be tempted to divert the money meant to fund the rehabilitation of infrastructure to salaries.

It is crucial that the NRZ revamps its railway system to enable it to provide efficient freight and passenger service as was the case in the past. The NRZ used to be one of the country’s biggest employers and there is no reason why it cannot regain this status. We have said it before that the NRZ should brace for an increased demand for its services as big companies such as New Zimsteel resume production.

New Zimsteel would rely on NRZ for the movement of coal from Hwange Colliery to its plant in Redcliff and even movement of steel to ports such as Beira in Mozambique. The NRZ management should not be found wanting when the promised funds are released but should instead be ready to hit the ground running once they receive the funds.

We want the rehabilitation work to be completed in the shortest possible time so that industry can start benefiting from an efficient and reliable railway system.

The revival of NRZ will obviously impact positively on the growth of Bulawayo, hence the residents’ excitement at the announcement that funding for the parastal’s recapitalisation has been secured.

The NRZ board on its part must move with speed to appoint a substantive general manager to succeed the late Retired Air Commodore Mike Karakadzai who died in a car accident last year.