TAZARA STAFF ON STRIKE AGAIN
(Posted 14th January 2015)
Only weeks after announcing that cross border trains between Tanzania and Zambia would be re-launched, cutting out the cumbersome change of trains at the border by passengers using the railway for their journeys, have the headlines again turned sour when it was reported that the Tanzania Zambia Railways Authority staff have gone on strike over the weekend and that industrial action continues to halt operations at least in Tanzania. Unconfirmed reports talk of trains on the Zambian side of the border still operating.
Efforts by management to have the staff go back to work and by the two governments to mediate between union and company failed as the strike continues and over 1.000 staff have reportedly downed their tools.
The union claims the strike is about long overdue wages and vowed to keep their members’ off work until the company has found funds to pay salaries and other benefits. This latest strike follows several similar strikes last year, when staff had not been paid either.
TAZARA, as previously reported here, is a sad example of mismanagement and often outright incompetence which has led to declining cargo and passenger volumes, shrinking revenues and decayed infrastructure. China, which built the railway in the 1970’s, has been approached to refurbish the railway line, locomotives and rolling stock. This, when accomplished, would allow for a rise in cargo volumes on the route, which provides a crucial second outlet to the sea for Zambia but also connects parts of Tanzania to the commercial capital of Dar es Salaam at affordable fares from areas where roads are often impassable during the rainy season.
Figures quoted in Tanzanian media speak of monthly wage bills of up to 1.4 million US Dollars against revenues of some 2 million US Dollars, showing the need to increase revenues or else find ways and means to reduce the wage bills.
The train is popular also with many foreign tourists, mostly back packers and train enthusiasts, who undertake the journey to see the often breathtaking landscapes across Tanzania and into Zambia and anyone planning to take the TAZARA passenger train should check with the company when train services are expected to resume. Watch this space.
