TANZANIA: RESIDENTS in the Great Lakes region have been encouraged to use water transportation which is
more affordable compared to other modes of transport, especially road transport.The remark was made here on Tuesday by the Marine Company Service Limited (MSCL) Managing Director, Mr Eric Hamissi when he was presenting a paper titled “Potential Business and Investment Opportunities in the Maritime Industry along the Great Lakes during the two-day rail-business and Investment Forum which ended here on Wednesday.
Mr Hamissi said water transportation is also a friendly-environment since it enables the community to have less carbon emissions.
He said MSCL has made tremendous achievements in port and maritime investment as it has rehabilitated and constructed new cargo vessels in Lakes Victoria and Tanganyika.
Mr Hamissi clarified that with the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway in the country, there will be a huge increase in cargo traffic to and from neighbouring countries.
“This means that the SGR is expected to transport more than 3.5 million tonnes per year from Dar es Salaam to the land-linked countries of Uganda, South Sudan, Democratic Republic of Congo and Burundi, compared to the current capacity of only 450,000 tonnes per year via the existing meter-gauge railway,” he noted.
He added that with its existing fleet of ships, MSCL can only transport 200,000 tonnes per year but upon the completion of the ongoing projects for the construction of new cargo ships, the transport capacity will increase to one million tonnes per year.
He said that the situation therefore requires the construction of at least more six ships with an average carrying capacity of 3,500 tonnes per ship to meet the upcoming demand in the future
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