"The enormous financial effort that the State is making in the revitalization and renewal of railway system assets in Angola justifies and must be accompanied by a consequent and timely restructuring of railway companies", said the executive administrator of the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT ), Alberto Nquengue.
The restructuring, he added, must also involve the sector's institutional financing model "on a consistent and coherent basis, in terms of the public transport market economy and financial stability".
"If this is not done, it will jeopardize, in the future, the effectiveness of rail transport and will irremediably compromise the reproducibility of ongoing investments and their effects on the growth and development of the national economy", he said.
For the ANTT administrator, who spoke on behalf of the Secretary of State for Land Transport during the opening of the 2nd Cycle of Railway Technical Conferences Angola Rail 2023, the relaunch of the sector must be aligned with the policy defined for national transport.
Alberto Nquengue stated that the Angolan Government believes it is necessary to intervene in the sector, through the Ministry of Transport, in harmony and coherence with the strategy and policy that has been designed for national transport, particularly "based on the restructuring of road companies- of the country's railways and the implementation of a new institutional model for the railway sector".
"The Ministry of Transport and the Government defend the assumption of these sectoral policy principles on the assumption of strengthening the contribution of the railway sector in defending the public interest for the economic development and regional cohesion of the country", concluded Alberto Nquengue.
Angola's railway network, supervised by the Ministry of Transport, is made up of the Luanda Railway (CFL), the Benguela Railway (CFB) and the Moçâmedes Railway (CFM).
The conference, promoted by the Association of Railway Technicians of Angola and public companies in this subsector of land transport, celebrates until Wednesday the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Railway Safety Week and the 135th anniversary of the beginning of railway exploration in Angola.
