Tanzania’s Minister of Transport, Prof. Makame Mbarawa, recently inspected the progress of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) construction on the Mwanza–Isaka section on February 20, 2025, at the Malampaka site in Simiyu Region.
Accompanied by Tanzania Railways Corporation (TRC) Director General Masanja Kadogosa, Simiyu Regional Commissioner Kenani Kihongosi, and Simiyu CCM Regional Chairperson Shemsa Mohamed Seif, Prof. Mbarawa expressed satisfaction with the contractor’s work, noting that critical embankment construction had surpassed 89% completion.
TRC Director General Kadogosa reported that track laying, station construction, and installation of electric poles are ongoing. “So far, construction progress has reached 63.04%, despite brief delays due to rain. We plan to accelerate work from April,” Kadogosa stated.
Prof. Mbarawa urged TRC to apply lessons learned from the Dar es Salaam–Dodoma sections to avoid recurring challenges, including optimizing parking areas for stations. “We must ensure that issues experienced in earlier sections, such as station parking space, do not reoccur here,” he emphasized.
Simiyu Regional Commissioner Kihongosi highlighted the project’s local impact, noting that 38 youths from Simiyu have gained employment through the initiative.
The Mwanza–Isaka SGR section spans 341 kilometers, with a construction cost exceeding TZS 3 trillion.
Tanzania SGR Project
The government of Tanzania is currently expanding the country’s rail network with the construction of an SGR to replace the old, inefficient meter-gauge railway system.
The SGR will link Tanzania, from the port of Dar es Salaam on the Indian Ocean to the port of Mwanza on the shore of Lake Victoria in northern Tanzania, and from there to neighboring countries of Rwanda, Burundi, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC).
The SGR consists of a network of about 2,000 km developed in six phases.
The Phase 1 railway connecting Dar es Salaam to Morogoro (300 km) was inaugurated in August 2024.
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