• Transport

Railway line as early as 2025?

- 2023-08-31 08:32:00

In Windhoek yesterday, Namibian transport minister John Mutorwa and his Botswana counterpart Eric Molale met for a ministerial meeting to discuss progress on the planned Trans-Kalahari train route. This means that an idea that was imagined years ago, has begun moving forward.
In 2010, the governments of Namibia and Botswana had signed a memorandum of understanding to facilitate the development of the Trans-Kalahari railway line in Namibia. A bilateral agreement followed in 2014 that provides for the development of the 1 500 km long route with the associated coal storage, conveying, loading and other ancillary facilities. A project management office agreement led to the establishment of a project management office in Windhoek.
Since then, little had happened on the railway project.
At the committee meeting yesterday, which followed a similar meeting in Botswana in July, the two ministers announced concrete timetables for the implementation of the route for the first time. Accordingly, the expression of interest period will take place between September 6th and November 8th of this year, where interested parties can approach the ministries. The so-called pre-qualification phase is scheduled to take place from December 2023 to February 2024. “Requests for Proposals” (RFP) will be possible between March and May 2024. The construction phase is scheduled to begin in January 2025.
Molale also said during the conference that the rail line was originally envisioned to transport coal, but as climate awareness grew, stakeholders lost interest. Now that copper is increasingly being mined for renewable energy in Namibia and Botswana, a new transport route has come at exactly the right time.
Mutorwa and Molale were both pleased and relieved that tangible progress was now being made on the project and expressed their belief that the railway would revolutionize transport in Southern Africa. Through this connection, the Walvis Bay port will continue to gain enormous importance for imports and exports in southern Africa. “I would like to remind people of the idea that Walvis Bay is not just a port for Namibians, but a port for SADC, for Africa and beyond,” said Mutorwa. Given the bottlenecks and difficulties in South African ports such as Durban, Walvis Bay is an invaluable transshipment point that will become more accessible to the entire SADC region thanks to the renewed railway line. “Transportation works even better via rail than via roads.”
When asked what had happened in the last nine years since the agreement was signed and what caused the stagnation, Mutorwa said it was not stagnation but an expected delay due to the complexity of the project. This was due to environmental and financial issues as well as difficult transnational staff meetings.
“That’s history, and now we’re making progress.”