Friday, March 29, 2024

New rail line to link SA to Zambia

Share

Botswana is advancing construction of a new railway line that will link Mmamabula coal fields in the centre of the country to Lephalale in South Africa.

The new line will also link Botswana from Mosetse with Zambia through Kazungala.

Effectively this creates a line running from South Africa to Zambia via Botswana.

Appearing before a Bostwana parliamentary committee, the chief executive of Botswana Railways (BR) Leonard Makwinja said the route made economic sense.

“That would be a shorter route for our big commodities. It makes more sense to build a shorter route rather than build another one parallel to the Mafikeng one,” said Makwinja in reference to an existing rail link.

Construction of the new line will begin in April 2021, and it will include a 4km bridge over the Limpopo River.

Mr. Makwinja said more than billion tonnes of coal deposits had been discovered in Botswana, and the new rail line was needed because the existing link had capacity to move 4,5 million tonnes per annum.

As such, the new railway line will be an addition to more than 800km of rail network that is government-owned.

Mr. Makwinja said there was no need to panic about the steady global shift to renewable energy sources, saying the world was also moving towards “clean coal technologies”.

“There is what is called clean coal technology. You can use technology to clean coal and that is what is going to drive demand for coal,” he said.

24 COMMENTS

  1. And some wizard from upnd will be lying to you telling you that there is no development under pf. You can see for yourself the projects we have undertaken and will continue to do. If someone tells you otherwise, please give them some dirty slaps

    5
    8
  2. This project is in Botswana so how does a sane person claim credit for it? No wonder they released a statement that he’s gone to Luangwa on holiday yet he’s in Kitwe’s Kamfinsa. His handlers didn’t have to force prison warder’s wives to dance for their boss at K150 each. When people have confidence in you they’ll dance for you for free

  3. Well, Zambia under the PF has tried to do things that were only being done under the UNIP government, especially when one thinks of infrastructure development. Others just want to come into power to be balancing the budget with no infrastructure development to point to. After all, they tell us, Zambians cannot eat roads or rail lines. So, theirs will just be to admire countries in the region embark on infrastructure development whilst they keep on saying, ” utunensu utukwete intungulushi”.

    4
    2
  4. Botswanans are serious people with technocrats in key govt position…in Zambia you just say Edgar Lungu and you hold your head down in shame…if it was Zambia they would have been looking for a foreign investor to build the railway and own the rail line. ..just look at the newly discovered Gold mine. Mind you this is the same coal mine feeding the coal power plant that is powering FQM Kansenshi mine in Solwezi.

  5. Don’t just talk. Zambia has done quite a lot in infrastructure development especially in recent years under pf. UNIP, MMD all had no infrastructure development practical policies. While ideas (and few of them) were just written down, pf actualised the ideas through implementation policies. We should be proud of our country and pf. We agree that mistakes have been made. However, I have seen serious corruption mistakes and many of the even in some of these highly industrialised countries. What hides their mistakes is the factor of endless money.

    1
    6
  6. One Cameroonian scientist has created an idea of how you can transform coal into green energy so there is room for coal to remain viable for development , and this innovations is working for the people in Cameroon .
    African are now waking up to the challenge of developing their continent and indeed the sky is the limit someone said.
    Africans all over the world have their eyes and hearts in this continent so gone are the days when someone from one empire came loot in Africa.
    Unity is the way to go as people of Africa.

  7. Zambia should be singing about rail lines within Zambia which are very very very scarce. Stop telling us about raillines in other countries and linking to our one railline.

Comments are closed.

Read more

Local News

Discover more from Lusaka Times-Zambia's Leading Online News Site - LusakaTimes.com

Subscribe now to keep reading and get access to the full archive.

Continue reading