Botswana Railways haunted by operational crisis

Cash-strapped Botswana Railways (BR) has failed to make profits over the year, with operating costs hitting over P250 million between financial years 2021/22 and 2024/25.The BR was established to run on a commercial basis, transport bulk freight, parcels, and passengers. For years, the organisation has been affected by operational inefficiencies.On top of this, BR is also currently struggling with the maintenance of its locomotives, wagons and has its coaches grounded in Mahalapye and Lobatse.Caretaker General Manager, Okitanye Gaogane, revealed this week that in its core business, which is freight, BR pushes about One (1) Million tonnes of freight per annum. The entity needs to push 1.4 million tonnes to be deemed commercially viable. The BR assets' availability has also declined.“We are struggling with the maintenance of our locomotives, which are our pulling power. We have a maintenance backlog that has resulted in an aging fleet. Out of the 31 locomotives, only eight are operating; the rest are not operating because they cannot pull, and we do not have funds to get them back to work,” he revealed.The disaster at Botswana Railways has forced Gaogane, who only joined the organisation in December last year, to change focus- shelve the 2024-2027 Strategic Plan and introduce what he calls the Bridging Plan.He told the Parliamentary Statutory Bodies and State Enterprise Committee, chaired by MP for Molepolole North, Arafat Khan, that his objective is now to stabilise the operation of the entity and improve governance issues. Herevealed that the plan is to have around 10-15 Locomotives. The organisation is awaiting spare parts from Namibia and plans to hire other locomotives.“Out of the 1155 wagons in our books, only 135 are working. For the period under review, we have made losses. We did not make losses because there is no business.The business is, it is just that we are out of business because we do not have money, and the business has been taken over by the trucks.We, however, have an aggressive plan in place. Our partners currently assist us because we do not have money,” the General Manager said.Botswana Railways is now relying on its partners for business to continue.“Even with maintenance, we do it with our partners. We are also working closely with our colleagues in South Africa. When we do not manage to transport our goods that side they collect from Gaborone and if they have challenges, we transport for them. The aim is to reduce turnaround time,” he said, adding that they are refurbishing the Locomotives and the wagons.Botswana Railways has made operational losses: with Financial Year 2021/22 losing P90 million; 2022/23 losing P45 million; 2023/24 losing P40 million, and 2024/25 losing P60 million.The general manager explained, “The plan is to prioritise operational efficiency and maintenance. We also want to develop other corridors to increase our network”.It has been revealed that for the much-awaited and promised return of the passenger train, the public might have to wait a little bit longer, as it is not a priority. The passenger train, which Botswana Railways has labelled as a ‘social good’, can only return when the freight part is doing well, and things have stabilised at the organisation. The passenger train is said to be non-profit-making and is only supported by freight.Gaogane has disclosed that the passenger train and other short routes will be considered in the next leg, which is the transformation. He also mentioned that the coaches are losing value.“There is a lot of vandalism going on, and we will need a lot of money to fix it,” he said.In 2016 the government bought the coaches for P226 million attracting controversy in the process as the coaches were second-hand. Records show that annually, Botswana Railways made a loss of P30 million under the passenger train.“It is difficult to reintroduce the passenger train. It is a social project. If freight is not doing well we cannot have the passenger train,” Gaogane explained.

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Botswana Railways haunted by operational crisis