Maybe it’s time for Mbalula to quit

A week ago in this newspaper, we said Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula should stop tweeting platitudes and get down to the hard business of firing the incompetents at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa). If not, then the blood of those who would die in the next train disaster would be on his hands.

Today, he is wringing his hands in anguish, while pledging to “keep tabs” on the investigations into yesterday’s fatal train crash in Roodepoort in which one person died and others were injured. One of Prasa’s trains – from its upmarket Premier Classe service – slammed into a stationary goods train.

Our comments about Mbalula followed our report that safety at Prasa – which handles passenger services across the country – was in deep trouble.

Areas for concern identified by whistleblowers and by the Rail Safety Regulator (RSR) include the shortage of proper brake shoes for Prasa trains and the fact that the signalling systems used by the organisation have either collapsed through lack of proper maintenance and cable theft; or because new equipment stands idle because no-one has been trained to use it.

In the past three years, there have been a worryingly high number of crashes involving Prasa trains … many of them because of problems related to signalling. Because of the decrepit state of the signals network, train warnings are being done manually, which has dramatically increased the chance of human error.

The larger human error, however, is that of the incompetents who have been running Prasa into the ground for years … and that of the minister, who has made plenty of promises of improvements which have led to no change whatsoever.

Minister Mbalula, we suggest you take an honest look at yourself. When South African citizens are dying on your watch, maybe it is time to resign.

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