South Africa’s Transnet "Impressed" With GRCL Engineers' Work On Eastern Rail Line

South African’s leading railway and ports company, Transnet International Holdings has put on hold its initial agreement to bring to Ghana thirty [30] South African railway engineers to work on the rehabilitation works on the country's eastern Line.

Chief Engineering Manager of Transet, Livhu Netshilavulu said its company is “much pleased” with works done so far by the Ghanaian engineers from the Ghana Railways Company Limited on the Achimota-Nsawam rails.

According to him, the Ghanaian engineers are at their “senior level in terms of professionalism” and will only need assistance from Transnet experts on how to execute the work.

Five topnotch Ghanaian engineers from the Ghana Railways Company Limited [GRCL] who were trained in South Africa rail and Logistics Company will be supported by a local workforce of 700 and supervised Transnet engineers.

The five member team includes Akorfa Addy- Area Civil Engineer, Noel Ofori Attah- Technical Engineer, Michael Oluwa Femi Duodu- Civil Engineer, Seidu Mohammed- Technical Engineer, and Jonathan Tsatsa Numo- Assistant Civil Engineer - the team will be led by Akorfa Addy [Area Civil Engineer].

The rehabilitation works are expected to be completed by December this year.

Officials from Transnet led by Livhu Netshilavulu met officials of the Ministry of Railway Development, the Ghana Railway Company Limited (GRCL) and Adasa Keteke Company Limited, the local partners of Transnet to discuss Ghana' technical requirement.

In an interview with Peacefmonline.com Livhu Netshilavulu noted that “by next month, we can start running trains on the eastern line”.

Maintenance

On maintenance, he said the partnership would provide extensive training for the GRCL staff to make them take over operations of the lines.

"One of our commitments to this programme is to ensure that we do extensive training and skills development. As part of the partnership, we will make sure that we execute a number of programmes that are geared towards developing Ghanaian skills in different aspects of rail operations and maintenance,” he said

“The local engineers will be trained so that when we leave, they will be able to operate the equipment and they will be able to do maintenance themselves. In three months time, we will be here [in Ghana] to access how things are going,” he added.