Mbeya plant to make sleepers for standard gauge railway

MBEYA based Kongolo Concrete Sleeper Plant (KCSP) will produce reinforced concrete sleepers to be used in the construction of the standardgauge railway expected to begin soon so as to cut costs, the government has said.

The Minister for Works, Transport and Communication, Prof Makame Mbarawa. said in Mbeya over the weekend that it was the intention of the government for the Mbeya plant owned by Tanzania- Zambia Railways Authority (TAZARA) produce the sleepers for the railway line so as to save cost and boost revenue of the jointly owned railway authority.

“I will make sure the contractor who will construct the railway will use sleepers produced by this plant instead of importing them from abroad,” said Prof Mbarawa in his tour of the plant over the weekend and noted he would direct a special committee on the construction of the railway to visit the plant to assess its production capacity.

Kongolo Concrete Sleeper Plant (KCSP) manufactures concrete sleeper for the 1,860km Tazara railway track. It also produces high quality ballast as the main product for railway maintenance whilst aggregates, chippings, boulders, quarry dust and crusher dust are produced as by-products for sale to the public, according to information from Tazara website.

The government is committed to revive industries in the country so as to increase job opportunities for Tanzanians and to propel the country to the middle income status by 2025 through industrial development.

The minister said the government would save significant amount of foreign currency by using rail sleepers manufactured within the country and would also be boosting revenue for Tazara as well as expand business scope for sleepers for local and foreign customers.

Prof Mbarawa has also inspected laboratory for measuring quarry quality at the plant and issued one month for TAZARA to obtain Tanzania Bureau of Standard (TBS) certificate of standard so that it could be formalized.

The Head of Kongolo Plant, Boniface Phiri, said the opportunity to manufacture sleepers for the envisaged standard gauge railway would boost production at the plant and increase revenue to the authority. He said they would increase machinery so that we can raise our production and improve quality to meet what is required in the mega railway project, he said.

Kongolo Concrete Sleeper Plant (KCSP) is unique in East and Central Africa which manufacture rail sleepers and has capacity of producing 24,000 sleepers annually. Prof. Mbarawa was in Mbeya to inspect railway, road and communication infrastructure