The Zambian government has pumped US$120 million into Zambia Railways Limited (ZRL) to improve safety and communication on the railway mainline.
About 1 per cent (US$1.2 million) of the funding will go into a new telecom system that intends to improve the system by making it more efficient.
Sydney Tembo, director of marketing at ZRL, said improvements have to be made because there is a demand for train services, which are 20 per cent cheaper than road fares.
“There is an overfull demand for passenger services. People scramble to get on our trains and we need to meet our customer demand,” he said.
Some of the money will also go into the restoration of the railway’s infrastructure, rolling stock and the purchasing of new passenger coaches.
Mwebantu reported that 21 per cent of the money is to go into purchasing 50 new passenger coaches and 11 per cent is going into purchasing more wagons.
Sixty per cent of the money will be spent restoring the railway tracks. This will improve the speed capacity and will result in better service delivery to customers.
Tembo said the ZRL will start in September this year with the restoration process once they start receiving equipment.
The freight transportation system is the core business of ZRL as it transports the inter-mine, local, exports, imports and transit cargo for the Zambian and regional economy.
The new improvement hopes to increase competition and networks with other countries in the region.
