Malawi –Tanzania: Lots in Common, Lots to Explore!

Exploring Inter-country Development Opportunities

I am fully in support of the Shire-Zambezi Waterway. I would also like to suggest that Malawi should increase its connectivity or access to the seas by exploring other routes as well. We currently access the Port of Dar Es Salaam via road through the Northern Corridor.

I want to point out that Tanzania is a very good alternative on many issues including our need for access to the sea. Here are a few things that we can consider:

(1) The Tazara (Tanzania-Zambia Railway)
This railway line links Lusaka in Zambia to the port of Dar Es Salaam via Tunduma district in the South of Tanzania.

Tunduma borders Nakonde District in Zambia and Chitipa District in Malawi - it is about 60km from Chitipa and therefore 161km from Karonga (Distance between Chitipa-Karonga is 101km).

We can build a railway line from Karonga to Tundama to connect to the TAZARA railway line (length = 161km). The key benefit of this is that we will have linked ourselves to the Port of Dar Es Salaam. From Karonga to the South of Malawi we will use barges on Lake Malawi.

(2) The Tazama (Tanzania-Zambia Mafuta) Oil pipeline.
The Tazama is a 1,710 kilometre (1,060 miles) long crude oil pipeline from the Single Point Mooring terminal at the outer anchorage of in Dar-es-Salaam, Tanzania, to the TIPER refinery in Dar-es-Salaam and the Indeni refinery in Ndola, Zambia. This pipeline also passes through Tunduma District.

Running alongside or parallel to the proposed railway line from Tunduma to Karonga we can have the oil pipeline.

(3) Electricty Supply
Tanzania and Zambia have an agreement for interconnectivity of electricity between the two countries. The majority of towns in the Southern part of Tanzania are supplied by electricity generated in Zambia - all towns along the Songwe River on the Tanzanian side have access to this power supply. They include: Tunduma, Itumba, Mbozi, Msiya, Ileje and many others. Sister towns on the Malawi side of the Songwe River do not have electricity, yet most of these towns (Kameme, Titi, Ipenza, Mwamkumbwa, Nkhangwa, Ngoya, Kapenda, Ichinga, Ifumbo and many others) do not have electricity. Most of these towns are within 10km from their Tanzanian neighbours only separated by the Songwe River.

(4) Water Supply
I believe that the two countries (Tanzania and Malawi) can also look at prospects for a joint rural water supply programme for their neighbouring towns mentioned above. The Songwe River constitutes an international boundary between the two friendly nations. We can explore the possibility of constructing a dam on the Songwe River to supply portable water to towns along the river.

In terms of socio-economic development, my assessment is that the Tanzanian border towns are growing faster, economically, owing largely to improved infrastructure - roads and electricity.

Culturally, people on both sides of the border are the same - they speak the same languages, Ndali, Lambya, Nyakyusa, Nyiha, Swahili, and Sukwa among others.
This sounds like a vision for Chitipa, but it has wider social, political and economic ramifications for the whole country - Malawi and also for Tanzania.

We need to be progressive!

Kennedy Lweya, PhD
Johannesburg – 10 November 2010