SOMA MAONI YA MTANZANIA ALIYEPO UK,AKIZUNGUMZIA RELI INAYOHITAJIKA TANZANIA

STANDARD GAGE RAILWAY

Have you ever wondered why successive Tanzanian governments have always dragged their feet over construction of not only railroads, but standard rail gauge?
I’m raising this question because today our members of parliament were very busy in the august House, calling on the government to abandon, for a while, road construction and instead embark in earnest on construction of standard gause railroads.

One woman member of parliament was actually caught on camera by the public broadcast, TBC television saying construction of railroads was the nation’s sole, remaining savior as far as communication in this country is concerned.
She said if the country wants revolution in its communication sector, then it has no alternative but to go for railroads and I totally agree with the honourable lady.
But the truth is that senior government officials and politicians are not interested in the construction of railroads, and in particular, standard gauge, which is similar to that of the Chinese built Tazara because they own the trucks you see around!
And talking about Tazara, that’s one of the reasons why that rail system has failed to stand on its feet!
Both the Zambian and Tanzanian governments are not interested in it except the Chinese who have always wanted their friends to succeed.
But do they care as long as they can run their trucks and make big bucks?
It would require a very strong political will, which I don’t see in the present leadership, for the standard gauge railway construction to take centre stage in this country!
What is more, owners of trucks make so much money that they have been doing everything in their power to frustrate any attempts to revive railway communication.
That is why there are always all kinds of problems whenever efforts are made to revive even the central railway line!
Those behind anything relating to railway construction do not want the people to get used to the fact that it is possible to revive the railway line as that could easily lead to the death of their trucks!
That is why even the minister responsible for transport who should be in the forefront in the campaign for construction of standard rail gauge all over the country has been talking about maintaining the central railway line which is a meter railway!
The minister’s argument is that meter railroads are still in use in the world, and mark you, this is a man who did his doctorate in law in Germany where he lived for seven years.
A country which is now weighing the option of introducing the use of maglev train which uses magnet and its speed is approximately 564km per hour!
Yes, they want to get out of the other electric systems where their trains have been travelling at a speed of between 200 and 300 kilometers per hour!
The Germany and European trains which run between 200 and 300 kilometers per hour, differ with Tazara on two things, while the latter use fuel, they use electricity and hybrid engines-electricity and diesel.
What this means is that if you electrify Tazara today (probably after getting our 1000 plus megawatt of gas by 2015), the train would be able to cruise at between 200 and 300 kilometres per hour if it also couples up with hybrid!
But again, such hybrid engines are used by freight trains that require a lot of energy in order to haul heavy loads.
But certainly not our outdated, antiquated meter railroads which our minister is defending to the hilt!
As for the maglev train, this is an automated train, and it has magnets on both the train and railroad.  The two magnets act against one another, hence forcing the train not only to hover six inches above its railroad, but also to move forward at a terrific speed!
To understand the revolutionary nature of the maglev train consider the following:
When a plane is  running on runway, preparing to take off, it normally runs 400 kilometers per hour!
But the maglev trains runs 564kilometers per hour, more than the speed of a plane about to take off!
What this means is that from Dar es Salaam to Mwanza, a distance of about 1200 kiometres, a maglev train would take not more than two hours.
This means it would be beaten by Boeing 737 flight by one hour!
Now if that is the kind of revolution that can be brought about by the maglev train, why do we still cling to meter railroads which are incapable of carrying heavy loads?
Why are we against standard gauge which would allow us to carry heavier goods and make life cheaper for us in terms of moving around goods and passengers?
You now have the answer, conflict of interest! 
That is why the father of the nation, Mwalimu Julius Nyerere, introduced during his time the Leadership Code which prohibited leaders from being involved in business!
He knew that as long as leaders were involved in business and leadership nothing will move forward!
That is what is making Dr Harrison Mwakyembe’s job of cleaning the port and airports of thieves extremely difficult.
This is because many leaders and politicians benefit from the port and airports, they are able to use such outlets for transporting all kinds of contraband goods that include elephant tusks.
That’s why even member of parliament make noise when their children are dealt with by police once they are nabbed with elephant tusks.
And by the way, what happened in 1992? Smart people used the unsuspecting, honest leader from Zanzibar to jettison the Leadership Code and everybody, including leaders and politicians, were allowed to get into business!
That is why it does not make sense, any more, for any politician to point an accusing finger to another as being a fisadi after the end of the leadership code.
This is because we are all fisadi. We are earned our present wealth while holding leadership position!
In other words, we are abusers of power and that is criminal!
In fact, it can be compared to blocking construction of railroads in the country.
Kenya, Uganda and Rwanda are already working on plans to build standard railroad from Mombasa to Kigali via Uganda.
What are we doing? We are whining when we know we are not ready for construction of such railroads on account of our ownership of trucks!