GOVERNMENT has been urged to capacitate the National Railways of Zimbabwe (NRZ) in order to support transportation of raw chrome after the ban on exports of the mineral was lifted.
by VENERANDA LANGA
This was said in the National Assembly last Thursday by Bikita West MP Munyaradzi Kereke (Zanu PF) while contributing to the debate on a motion on the Presidential speech.
“Export of chrome has been re-opened, but again we need to take stock on the capacity of the economy to have the logistical muscle to actualise expected value because chrome in its raw form by nature has a very low weight-to-value ratio,” Kereke said.
“It is bulky and you need to move so many tonnes across the borders to get a certain monetary value. When you look at the situation at the NRZ and the road haulage capacity of the country, you can only anticipate a binding constraint which is likely to frustrate our efforts to export chrome.”
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Kereke said attention should now be placed on restoring some modicum of viability at the NRZ to be able to support the intended projects in mining.
“At the moment NRZ does not have adequate wagons and locomotive heads to pull the rolling stock and even mere signalling equipment. Now train drivers have to use cellphones to say ‘Where are you now? Do I slow down?’ to avoid collision,” he said.
“We cannot allow our institutions to be run the way they are being run if we are to recover as an economy.”
Kereke said productivity in the diamond mining sector was also dwindling.
“We had a good story emerging in the diamond sector, but to date diamonds are slowly fizzling out of sight in terms of performance. We urge that re-alignment of laws in the diamond sector are done and concluded so that the sector can play a meaningful role in the economy,” he said.