By Enyichukwu Enemanna
Tanzanian President, Samia Suluhu Hassan on Thursday flagged off a 541-km modern standard gauge railway project, running between its administrative and commercial capitals.
The $3.1 billion project being handled by a Turkish firm Yapi Merkezi is part of the government’s efforts towards improving transport infrastructure in the country.
President Hassan after the foundation laying for the electric train services in the commercial capital Dar es Salaam, had immediately boarded a train for a four-hour trip to the administrative capital, Dodoma.
The two sections flagged off by the President are part of a planned 2,561-km rail network which is expected to boost domestic and regional trade upon completion.
Heritage Times HT reports that several African leaders have come under heavy criticism as a result of their borrowing spree for development of infrastructure, particularly roads, railways and bridges.
There has been so much worries about facilities secured from China which comes with dire consequences upon repayment default, including total take-over.
Such loans are also viewed as pillage of debt burden for future generations.
Tanzania signed a $1.46 billion loan agreement with Standard Chartered Bank Tanzania in 2020 to partly fund the section of stretch launched on Thursday.
“We are continuing to construct the railway up to Kigoma until we connect with the neighbouring countries so that we can improve our businesses,” Hassan told cheering residents in one of the train stations in the outskirts of Dar es Salaam.
Her government is also building a rail network towards the Lake Victoria port city of Mwanza and preparing to start construction of another line to Kigoma in the west to connect with Burundi and Democratic Republic of Congo.
“This railway is going to liberate our businesses,” she said at a stop in the eastern Tanzanian city of Morogoro.
Once the Burundi link is operational, the two nations expect to transport three million tons of minerals annually including nickel to Dar es Salaam’s port, according to the Tanzanian finance ministry.
