Maputo — The Mozambican government on Tuesday announced the creation of an office to support the construction of a new railway line connecting the north and south of the country.
The North-South Railway Office (GLNS) will coordinate work on the first railway to connect the country, rather than linking neighbouring countries to the Indian Ocean.
The time needed to build this ambitious project is estimated at between six and eight years. The new office will be responsible for promoting, developing and coordinating the initiative.
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Speaking to reporters after a meeting of the Council of Ministers (Cabinet), the government spokesperson and Minister of State Administration, Inocencio Impissa, said the project will connect the existing rail lines, with planned extensions, and entirely new stretches of track.
The purpose, Impissa said, is "to establish an efficient connection between strategic poles of agricultural, industrial, mining and tourism production'.
In addition to boosting national unity, the new line, he added, will contribute to regional integration within SADC (Southern African Development Community).
Mozambique has never had a national rail network. The railways were built piecemeal, and the main lines were constructed to serve the needs, not of Mozambique, but of the neighbouring countries.
The first line built, in 1896, linked the Boer republic of the Transvaal to the port of what was then Lourenco Marques (today's Maputo), giving the Transvaal a route to the sea that was not under British control.
Subsequently came lines that provided landlocked countries (Eswatini, Zimbabwe and Malawi) with routes to the Indian Ocean through Mozambican territory. All these railways went in an east-west direction, and none of them connected Maputo with the north of Mozambique.
A number of smaller lines were built, serving local markets, but none of them are operational today. The line from the port of Quelimane, in the central province of Zambezia, to the city of Mocuba, could have been useful for the development of Zambezia, but it was comprehensively sabotaged by the former rebel movement Renamo, in the 1980s.
Impissa thought the existing lines will provide an initial basis for GLNS to work on. The new stretches to be built between the southern, central and northern rail networks, he said, will cover "points defined by the government as strategic in terms of productive capacity'.
The GLNS will carry out technical, economic and financial viability studies, mobilise finance and attract foreign investors. Impissa did not put a figure on how much the new line will cost.
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The GLNS will also be responsible for environmental and social impact studies, and for managing the public tenders that will select consultants and contractors.
