In Tambacounda, a city 500 kilometers east of the Senegalese capital, the Dakar-Bamako train has not run since 2018. In April last year, the Minister of Transport announced that traffic would resume in December 2021 to Tambacounda, failing to rehabilitate rails to Mali. A promise that the people were waiting for while the train brought life to the whole region which was more isolated.
From our special correspondent in Tambacounda,
The station gates from the colonial era are closed … Only motorcycles and a few passers-by cross the abandoned rails. In the shade of a tree, Dior Amar – the owner of the station restaurant – has lost most of his customers since the train stopped. “We are bankrupt. There was everything: thiep, thiéré, chicken and steak … But at the moment nothing works, everything is blocked, ”she regrets.
Employees such as Seydou Keïta, a railway maintenance and repair agent, still work in the old railway buildings. Even though the activity is almost at a standstill, he goes to the office every day.
“At the end of the month, what I collect is used to buy fuel to leave the village and come here. There is no money because when you work you earn overtime and on the weekends if the train is there you earn something. If the train does not come, you win nothing. “Seydou explains.
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An overloaded road sector
Several sectors were affected by the train stop – such as trade, hotels and truck transport. Modou Kayéré from the Union of West African Drivers notes that road density is too high compared to infrastructure capacity.
“The overload of weight causes rapid deterioration of the roads. The road transport sector alone is not enough. What the train has to carry behind a truck will only hurt because it is too heavy. The two must go hand in hand. We must reduce the density of this traffic from Dakar to Tambacounda and start the train that can serve us, advocates Modou Kayéré.
Hoping for the “dry harbor” in Tambacounda
Authorities have promised that the train will resume in December 2021 between the port of Dakar and Tambacounda, a city in the center of the country where a “dry port” will be built. Hoping to revive the region’s economy for El Hadj Mamadou Kacé, Vice President of the Chamber of Commerce.
“We will move some activities from the port to Tambacounda. The containers leave the port of Dakar by train and arrive here in Tambacounda. We will build a large structure where the trucks can then pick up these goods. The state of Senegal had made a commitment. The studies are already complete, the website has already been selected. Now everything remains to be materialized, he points out.
This heavy infrastructure renovation project will be difficult to complete on time unless efforts are made from next month, according to the Intersyndical des cheminots.
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