Privately funded Trans-Kalahari RAILWAY project gathers pace

Momentum is gathering for a privately financed Trans-Kalahari Railway project that will usurp Transnet’s declining port and rail infrastructure in South Africa. We’ve already reported on Transnet’s about-face on private funding to reinvigorate the critical railway corridor between Johannesburg and Durban.

Now, Daily Investor with Bloomberg reports of growing, unsolicited support for the new Trans-Kalahari Railway project. The proposed 1 500 km railway will run from Botswana to the Namibian port of Walvis Bay, with the sole goal of working around Transnet’s failings.

TRANS-KALAHARI RAILWAY PROJECT

Big business in South Africa is all too aware of the poisonous monopoly that state-run Transnet has on the country’s railways and ports. Yet another year of crumbling infrastructure and worsening backlogs at the ports is making doing business all the more difficult in the country.

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Now, Botswana’s Minister of Transport and Public Works, Eric Molale, has discussed the growing support for the Trans-Kalahari Railway project. “The UAEs, Qataris, Chinese and Indians have also come to say this is not a long line for them (the proposed 1500 km railway). In fact, it is a comparatively short one that they can do very quickly,” Molale said.

BOTSWANA ALSO IMPACTED

“We learned in June that the waiting period at all South Africa ports is a minimum of two weeks. Snarled transportation also has the potential to crimp expansion in landlocked Botswana, which relies on South Africa for most of its trade. Therefore, an alternative route offering shorter travel times than South Africa’s own ports must be attractive,” said Molale.

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The Trans-Kalahari Railway project was first signed between Botswana and Namibia in 2010. The original goal was to export coal from Botswana, but has since shifted to the fast-developing Kalahari Copperbelt in the West of the country.

CROSSING THE DESERT

The railway line would run from Gaborone, through the Kalahari Desert to Gobabis in Namibia, and onto Walvis Bay on the Atlantic Ocean. The countries setup a bi-national project office back in 2015 to push the project. However, 12 companies have submitted expressions of interest in the last month of 2023 alone.

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It is understood that a formal request for proposals will be released in March 2024, with construction set to begin in January 2025. “We see ourselves best placed for companies in Johannesburg and Pretoria. Either way, going West or East, they cover the same distance and some of them, like vehicle manufacturers, have already come to us to make this happen,” the Minister concluded.

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