AFRICA: The shortlist for a PPP contract to develop and implement the proposed 1 672 km railway which would link Dar es Salaam in Tanzania with Kigali in Rwanda and Musongati in Burundi was announced on November 17.
Rwanda Transport Development Agency is leading procurement on behalf of the three countries. The shortlisted companies and consortia are:
- China Railway Group;
- Sinohydro Corporation Ltd with China Railway Materials and Beijing National Railway Research & Design Institute of Signal & Communication Group;
- China Communications Construction Co;
- Yapi Merkezi İnşaat;
- Il & FS Transportation and Frontline Development;
- Grindrod Rail;
- Kolin İnşaat, Turizm Sanayi ve Ticaret;
- China Civil Engineering Construction Corp;
- Aveng Group with Arcus Gibb, Siemens, CTLE, DBSA, KfW, Deutsche Bank and Euler Hermes;
- Transet;
- Mota-Engil Engenharia e Construção África;
- NGE Contracting with TSO, Alstom and System.
Requests for proposals will now to be sent to the shortlisted firms. RTDA said it would also encourage entities which had not been shortlisted to ‘continue the collaboration’.
The project is known as the DIKKM railway from the initials of the main places to be served. Around 172 km of the route would be in Burundi and 123 km in Rwanda. There would be 407 km of new alignment in Tanzania from Keza to Isaka, and 970 km paralleling the existing metre-gauge line between Isaka and Dar es Salaam.
The mixed-traffic DIKKM railway would be built to 1 435 mm gauge, in line with East African Community and African Union policies for new lines in the region, and would be suitable for 2 000 m long freight trains with 32·4 tonne axleloads.
