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Mr Nyasha Maravanyika

Business Reporter
THE National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) has rebranded its workshop to offer external equipment repair services to private clients.

NRZ public relations manager, Mr Nyasha Maravanyika, said the rebranded workshop, which previously had three separate departments namely mechanical, electrical and bridge yard, had been integrated. The inter-linked workshop is called Inter Rail Tech.

“When we talk of NRZ people think only of locomotives not knowing that we have three massive workshops in Bulawayo and Mutare. So, Inter Rail Tech as a brand name, we are saying our workshops are interlinked; they are inter-connected. When you start from the small electric motors going up to the bridgeyard where there is fabrication of locomotives, this is the inter-connection we are talking about,” he said.

“We need to make sure that not only big companies like PPC Zimbabwe (Pretoria Portland Cement) and others or Hwange Colliery Company Limited see the value of NRZ. We are saying that even small companies can also tap into the NRZ workshop and we are saying we are there to facilitate and service them. We are no longer doing it for our locomotives, wagons and coaches, we can also do it outside.”

Mr Maravanyika said the adoption of the new model shows that the firm has the capacity to meet new customer specifications as well as deadlines.

“NRZ is ready to service the nation because as a strategic company we have to unlock business. The media has been reporting that NRZ is failing to pay workers; NRZ is doing this and that, but the issue is that we are now trying to unlock value from the things that we normally use internally for our locomotives,” he said, adding that the parastatal has to stand up to the challenge to create money.

The interconnection of the NRZ workshops comes at a time when the parastatal has embarked on a turnaround programme aimed at restoring the parastatal to its former glory.

At present NRZ is finalising a partnership deal set to inject about $400 million. The NRZ recapitalisation initiative involves the rehabilitation and renewal of plant, equipment, rolling stock, track signaling and telecommunications infrastructure and the supporting information technology (IT) systems.

The Government has granted the railways recapitalisation programme a national project status and the parastatal targets to move 14 million tonnes of freight per year once it secures the required funding. At its peak in 1998, NRZ moved 18 million tonnes of cargo.