Cape Town - Spoornet, the rail parastatal, had issued an ultimatum to the Zimbabwean Railways to cut its haulage rates and other charges by 45 percent, or the Blue Train would no longer travel to Victoria Falls, Zandile Jakavula, the chief executive, said yesterday.
He told a joint sitting of three committees covering transport and public enterprises that the Blue Train had been "struggling for the last three years", but was likely to break even this year and earn a R1 million profit next year "despite the fact that we are struggling with neighbouring countries".
In Zimbabwe, Spoornet had been running the Blue Train "like Father Christmas because for the train to go there I lose R260 000 for every trip and the reason for that is the haulage charges as well as the tourist fees that we pay," Jakavula said.
"Instead of them thanking me for taking the train there, they are penalising me."
The haulage charges charged by Zimbabwe were 389 percent more than those charged by Botswana even though the journey through Botswana was 53km longer than the distance covered in Zimbabwe.
He would be meeting the Zimbabweans on March 26 and March 27, to cut the charges by 45 percent "so that they are in line E if they do not do that, I am pulling the train out of Victoria Falls".
He appealed to the committees to support Spoornet's bid to get a subsidy from the government to support its mainline passenger services.
He said these services, which contributed only 2,6 percent of Spoornet's R10 billion turnover last year, were cross-subsidised at a cost of R175 million a year by the more profitable CoalLink, the coal export line, and Orex, the iron-ore export line.
He said the mainline passenger services provided an important alternative means of transport to many South Africans.
"But with the pressure on us to be profitable, we have already approached the minister of transport that, like Metrorail and buses and taxes, we also need to be considered now," he said.
Spoornet had benefited from the cut in the 16,5c a litre fuel levy it paid even though it did not use roads and hoped the remaining 6c a litre levy would be cut next year.
Jakavula said the turnaround specialists appointed last year to identify gaps in the business had now completed their work and their suggestions would be implemented over the next two years "to transform our operational efficiency".
This would be accompanied by enhanced skills development and job enrichment programmes.