LEGAL Affairs Minister and Attorney-General George Kunda has cleared the concessioning of Zambia Railways (ZRL) and the long-awaited signing will take place in the second week of February.

Commerce, Trade, and Industry Minister Bates Namuyamba confirmed that all the legal issues that were of concern to the two parties have been resolved.

In an interview yesterday, Mr Namuyamba said the Zambian negotiating team and the officials from the New Limpopo Project Investments (NLPI) will meet next week to re-draft the agreement.

The consortium will pay for the exercise a total of $253 million within a period of 20 years and Government would be entitled to five per cent of the turnover every quarter.

Mr Namuyamba said after the first five years of concessioning, Government would evaluate the programme.

He said if Government was satisfied, the concessioning exercise would be extended to 25 years from the initial 20 years in the agreement.

The issue of employees has also been addressed adequately in the revised agreement.

The concessioning of Zambia Railways was approved two years ago by Cabinet after several recommendations to transform the railway company into a vibrant transport system.

Government wanted to ensure that in the event of an unprecedented crisis like what happened at the Konkola Copper Mines (KCM), the operations of the railway company would not grind to a halt.

KCM was almost thrown into disarray after the unexpected pull out by the Anglo-American Corporation (AAC) from the mining company.

On the other hand NLPI which was in consortium with South African transport giant Transnet's railway division Spoornet was skeptical about the changes in the law.

They wanted to know what would happen in the event that the law changed in favour of road transporters. They also asked for an exemption on certain taxes.

Mr Namuyamba said all the issues were resolved last week and Mr Kunda was now satisfied with the conditions agreed upon.

He said in the KCM matter, Government did not adequately prepare itself and the experience had made the Attorney-General rather uncomfortable to go ahead with the agreement without putting certain precautions in place.