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Chinese locomotives kaput N$36m down the rail
THE four Chinese locomotives, which cost about N$36 million and arrived in Namibia five years ago, could be used for only 33 months and suffered 265 failures during that time from October 2004 until June 2007, Parliament was told yesterday.
“This translated into an availability rate of less than 40 per cent,” Works and Transport Minister Helmut Angula said in response to questions posed by Nora Schimming-Chase of the CoD.
“TransNamib grounded all these locomotives in June 2007 due to their poor performance and serious safety risks related to the braking system,” Angula added.
“The decision to buy them was economically justified, but due to a lack of a proper technical analysis of the Chinese manufacturer’s design and a lack of quality control, these locomotives were not suitable for the Namibian environment in which they had to operate.”
In response to Schimming-Chase’s question as to who would pay for these ‘white elephants’, Angula said that TransNamib and the Chinese company had agreed in 2005-06 that the Chinese would rebuild the four locomotives at a cost of US$260 000 (about N$2,6 million.) The Chinese train bought for the route from Windhoek to Ondangwa – the Omugulu GwoMbashe Star – was bought for US$2,3 million (about N$23 million), the Minister told the House.
It was originally intended as a shuttle train between Windhoek and the Hosea Kutako International Airport, but this never materialised.
The train was rerouted to the Windhoek-Walvis Bay route and from July 2006 to the northern route between Windhoek and Ondangwa and ran once a week.
“The Omugulu GwoMbashe Star (OGS) broke down in March 2007 with a broken gearbox casing. As this product was a one-off unit manufactured for TransNamib, such part had to be manufactured in China and arrived in September 2007,” according to Angula.
But the saga did not end there.
During the test run, “the complete gearbox disintegrated”, the Minister added.
Replacement parts arrived 15 months later, at the end of 2008. This time the repairs were completed and the test runs were successful.
“Since the end of 2008, the OGS is running but it does not go to the north,” Angula told the astonished MPs.
“Currently the OGS is catering mainly for business corporate functions and chartered trips.”
In the meantime, TransNamib is analysing the train routes in the country “to determine which route and rail service could best apply in order to utilise the OGS”.
Angula did not say why TransNamib did not do such a study before the OGS came into operation.
