By EPN Reporter
MBABANE – About 5 000 job opportunities are expected to be realised during the construction of a railway line, through the Rail Link project.
This is contained in the Eswatini Investments Promotion Authority (EIPA) Strategy Presentation for Cabinet Retreat. EIPA was presenting on what it intended to do during this year and beyond, in terms of attracting foreign and domestic investments in the country.
One of the activities that EIPA will use to attract investments is the Eswatini Rail Link project, which connects Eswatini with South Africa. The project will constitute building a 150km railway line from Lothair in South Africa to Sidvokodvo in South Africa. From Sidvokodvo, an existing railway line is expected to be used until it reaches Richard’s Bay in South Africa, a city that has a sea port, where goods can be exported to overseas countries. According to the presentation, this project will create approximately 5 000 jobs, with 300 of them being permanent.
The project is an investment of approximately E21.6 billion (USD 1.2 billion) and it will be implemented through a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) representing the interests of the involved countries. Funding of the project is through what is known as an off-take agreement.
The project is a long term infrastructure project that was started with the purpose to de-congest cargo traffic on the roads. The project is expected to support the economic development of mining industries related to rail logistics.
The Eswatini Rail Link project is a joint inter-railway strategic collaboration between South Africa’s Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) and Eswatini Railways (ESR).The project aims to create a new dedicated general freight business (GFB) corridor that will divert the movement of general freight cargo away from TRF’s export coal line running from the Mpumalanga Province to the Port of Richards Bay.
It will free up capacity on the export coal line as well as the eastern mainline and the north-south corridor. The general freight cargo is planned to be transported through Eswatini to the Port of Richards Bay.
The rail project began with the commissioning of a concept level study in 2011 to investigate the provision of a rail link between Lothair in South Africa and a suitable location along the Swaziland railway network.
A memorandum of understanding (MoU) was signed between the Government of the Republic of South Africa and the Government of the Kingdom of Eswatini in August 2012. It was followed by the signing of a subsequent MoU between TRF and ESR in November 2012 for collaboration between the organisations in assessing the feasibility of linking the two railways networks. The feasibility study was completed in July 2015.
