It would take at least six years to rebuild Prasa railway stations, say experts

Experts say the deterioration of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) is another example of a constant attempt by the current executive, or ministers, to distance themselves from what happened prior to them taking office, which is a way to shift the blame to their predecessors.

This week, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula released a media statement about the state-owned enterprise’s path to recovery.

“We inherited a broken organisation in dire straits. Through the shareholders compact we concluded with the board, we seek to address the challenges with speed, in a systematic and focused manner; when we came into office in 2019, we set out a process to address the dire state of the entity and implemented various interventions to address institutional and operational challenges at Prasa,” said Mbalula.

Dr Willem Sprong, technical executive railway engineering at GIBB Engineering, said it would take six or more years to rebuild the vandalised Prasa railway stations.

ALSO READ: ‘It won’t take 30 years to fix Prasa,’ says Mbalula

“Two years ago, Mbalula appointed the administrator with a full team of people who were supposed to bring Prasa back on track and now they might use the pandemic as an excuse, even though things started deteriorating,” said Sprong.

“They already said that there’s 87km of electricity cables which were stolen, they spent about six years to implement the signalling upgrade for the stations in Gauteng but all that has also been vandalised and stolen.”

He added: “If they say they will run it back to normal like we expect it to be electrified and run the trains at 90km/h on the railway lines it would be impossible within six years.

“Our estimate we did at the beginning of this year showed us it would take at least six years just to get Gauteng back on track and our calculations were about R4 billion and you still have Cape Town, Durban and Port Elizabeth and to say all those cities will be covered within a year is impossible.”

Political economy analyst Daniel Silke said the deterioration of Prasa continued for the better part of the past decade, if not longer.

“There was no leadership within the broader executive to hold the previous ministers to account or to attempt any kind of reboot earlier on,” said Silke.

He added the ruling party has always been in charge of Prasa.

“The ANC was in control of Prasa effectively before and the ANC still controls Prasa. It is a case of deflecting and a way of trying to differentiate between this particular group of ANC leaders compared to the previous executives.

“There is nothing more to say, either, than Mbalula must get on with the job of creating better transport policy and facilitating a much more liberal regulatory environment to allow the private sector to invest in public transport and our rail network,” he said.

Mbalula added: “I have been briefed on a number of significant decisions the board has made, which include the termination of employment of the group CEO [Lucky Montana].

ALSO READ: Prasa project ‘on world-class track’, says CEO

“The Special Investigation Unit report implicates about 44 officials in wrongdoing and the board is implementing consequences management in this regard.

“Our efforts to turn around Prasa will not take us 30 years, but will deliver tangible results in the coming year. Most of the corridors that were shut down will be back to full operation in the new year, including the Central line in Cape Town and the Mabopane line in Tshwane.”

Political analyst Levy Ndou said the country was synonymous with the collapse of state-owned enterprises.

“We also have a challenge of maintenance; it is not only Prasa that is not maintaining its infrastructure, public works, the army, our stadiums, parks and hospitals are not maintained,” Ndou said.

“It is good that Mbalula mentioned there are challenges but what citizens expect are solutions rather than a minister who is complaining and now that he has identified the problem, he must show us that indeed he wants to make a difference.”

– asandam@citizen.co.za