By Samantha Enslin

Durban - Spoornet, along with Rand Merchant Bank and KMM, are hoping talks with the Ghanaian government to take over the running of the country's western railway lines will be successfully concluded by the end of the year.

Jan-Louis Spoelstra, the acting executive manager of Spoornet's international joint ventures, said that if all was agreed by December, the consortium would start running the network at the end of next year.

The 400km western line, which services bauxite and manganese ore producers, is the busiest of Ghana's railway network. The deal is worth between $12 million and $13 million.

Spoelstra said the opportunity was identified by Rand Merchant Bank, which invited Spoornet and KMM to come on board. KMM is headed by Moeletsi Mbeki, the brother of President Thabo Mbeki.

Among other things being negotiated was the length of the concession, which Spoornet hoped would be 25 years.

Spoelstra said the investment required would be about $20 million. Of that Spoornet would contribute between $1 million to $2 million, subject to board approval. The rest would be sourced from other shareholders, soft loans from the European Union and ordinary commercial debt.

In another initiative aimed at increasing Spoornet's presence throughout Africa, six Spoornet locomotives are due to set sail today for the Port of Sudan  
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These would complement the 10 locomotives already on lease to the Sudanese government. The lease, which includes overseeing the maintenance of the 16 locomotives, would cost about R30 million a year.

Spoelstra said it made sense for Sudan to lease locomotives rather than buy new ones, which cost $1.5 million each.

Spoornet would now embark on refurbishing Sudan's own 35 locomotives, which would take several years to complete, by which time the leased locomotives would return to South Africa for deployment elsewhere.

The international division generates about 1 percent of Spoornet's turnover and contributes 10 percent to net profit.

The deputy head of the Sudanese mission in South Africa, Hassan El Talib, said that in light of the fact that Spoornet was already working in the Democratic Republic of Congo, he hoped plans by the New Partnership for Africa's Development to facilitate transport networks throughout Africa would result in a railway line from Cape to Cairo, through Sudan.

Other new business for Spoornet included, along with New Limpopo Bridge Project Investments, a concession to run Zambia railways and to run railway networks in southern Mozambique.