Portuguese contractor Mota-Engil says construction of the Kachaso–Nkaya railway line, which will facilitate transportation of coal from Brazilian company Vale’s Moatize coal mine to the Indian Ocean Port of Nacala, is on schedule despite a strike by the company’s employees that halted work on the project for a week.
Mota-Engil contracts manager Joao Neto says the company, which has now resumed working on the railway line after reaching an agreement with the striking workers has devised new tight work plans to cover for time lost during the strike.
Construction of the railway stretch started on March 17, 2012, and is scheduled to be completed by June 16, 2014.
“At the rate we are going, we will . . . beat the deadline,” he says.
The Malawi government expects to earn over $15-million a year from the Brazilian resources group in the form of concessional fees and taxes related to the operation of the Kachaso–Nkaya railway line, which is a vital link from the Moatize coalfield, in Mozambique, through Malawi to the Port of Nacala.
The railway line is also expected to facilitate the development of other industries in Malawi, including energy generation. For instance, the Chinese government has launched a project to set up a coal-fired power plant at Zalewa, in Malawi’s Neno district. The plant will be fuelled by coal from Moatize.
Besides building the 138 km railway line, Malawi is also pre- paring to rehabilitate the Blantyre–Nsanje railway line, a vital link to the Mozambican Indian Ocean Port of Beira.