TAZARA Authority Announces $1.4 Billion Revitalization Project
Updated: 2 days ago
Tanzania-Zambia Railway (TAZARA) authority on March 20, 2025, announced a $1.4 billion revitalization project for the iconic interstate railway line, reported by some African media.
According to the reports, the revitalization project that is expected to take three years to complete, will be financed and carried out by China Civil Engineering Construction Corporation (CCECC), and will entail the following.
Refurbishment of rail tracks at a cost of $1 billion
Purchase of new locomotives and wagons at a cost of $400 million
Also, CCECC will manage and maintain the railway line over a period of 27 years after completion of the project, say the reports without specifying the cost for that.
TAZARA was built by Chinese in 1970s. It spans 1860 kilometres from the port of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania to the town of Kapiri Mposhi in Zambia, via many beautiful railway stations.
It goes through picturesque surroundings including some national parks, as well as through a series of 23 tunnels under hills, and many bridges over valleys and rivers.
The railway line has a gauge similar to that of Southern Africa railway systems including those of Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Angola, Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa, meaning that it links Dar es Salaam not only to Kapiri Mposhi but also to as far flung places as Lubumbashi, Lobito, Harare, Bulawayo, Gaborone, Johannesburg, and Cape Town, among others.
When it was first launched, TAZARA was a wonderful state-of-the-arts piece of infrastructure. However, Tanzania and Zambia absurdly became unable to utilize it to full capacity in order to unlock its potential economic benefits, through, let say, optimization, sophistication, and diversification of transportation of goods and people. As such, it became a white elephant, and after decades of underutilization, lack of maintenance, and mismanagement, today the iconic railway line is said to be in an appalling condition, with negligible traffic volumes and dilapidated rail tracks. Hopefully, the announced revitalization project when completed will lead to a new era for TAZARA, by which the railway line will be fully utilized, properly managed, and regularly maintained, hence economically beneficial to Tanzania and Zambia, and Southern Africa at large.
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