The Tanzania-Zambia Railway Authority (TAZARA) railway hauled 251,264 tonnes of freight from July 2023 to March 2024 compared to 235,071 tonnes of freight that were transported during the same period in the 2022/2023 financial year, an official told parliament on Monday.
Minister of Transport Makame Mbarawa said the transported freight in the nine months amounted to a 6.89 percent rise in the ferried freight.
Presenting his ministry’s budget estimates for the 2024/2024 financial year, Mbarawa attributed the increased freight haulage to the participation of the private sector in the transportation of cargo using the TAZARA railway which covers 1,860 kilometers from Tanzania’s port city of Dar es Salaam to New Kapiri Mposhi in landlocked Zambia.
He told the House in the capital Dodoma that another reason for the increased freight haulage was the completion of the renovation of the Chambeshi Bridge in Zambia after it was closed from September 2021 to October 2022.
The minister said the transportation of passengers using TAZARA decreased from 712,428 that were ferried from July 2022 to March 2023 to 672,006 passengers that were ferried between July 2023 and March 2024.
Mbarawa attributed the decrease to a lack of passenger wagons and ongoing torrential rains that have affected the railway infrastructure.
TAZARA was constructed as a turnkey project between 1970 and 1975 through an interest-free loan from China, with commercial operations starting in July 1976.
