Revitalising its infrastructure is imperative for the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) which is inviting companies to engage with it in Public Private Partnerships (PPP)

This comes as the parastatal has not yet received the $9 million that it was allocated under the Public Sector Investment Programme (PSIP) in the last budget.

However, the parastatal requires about $2 billion to implement its long term strategy with $400 million required in the short term to restore infrastructure. Revitalising the railway services provider would allow the parastatal to recapture lost traffic and win new customers. Last year 3.7 million tonnes of goods were moved on rail through Zimbabwe, against a target of six million tonnes.

During May, the Minister of Transport, Communications and Infrastructure Development, Nicholas Goche, announced he was confident that the National Railways of Zimbabwe would rebound following an injection of fresh capital by an undisclosed foreign investor. The debt ridden NRZ has been ailing for over a decade due to under capitalisation, ageing equipment and a decline in business since 2000. Several manufacturing companies in Zimbabwe, the backbone of the NRZ’s business, have closed, and the shipment of coal from Hwange Colliery Company Limited, which sustained NRZ, has declined significantly by going over to road transport.

In June, the parastatal announced to the local media that it was leasing out its properties countrywide in a bid to generate revenue and in some effort to turn around its fortunes.