Mbalula’s Prasa boasts are ‘hogwash’, trains still going nowhere

The “war room” intervention to pull the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) out of the doldrums has seemingly achieved nothing, with the agency’s senior manager and labour saying there was no truth in Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula’s boast about some progress.

Mbalula is expected to provide an update on the war room’s successes today.

In November last year, the minister said 14 weeks into the intervention there was a reliable public passenger railway service, increased train availability, improved time performance, protection of corridors and an increase in paying passengers.

But the United National Transport Union (Untu), the largest union in the sector, has suggested that the real task of the war room was to mislead the public.

The union’s spokesperson, Sonja Carstens, said she has been in three of these war rooms and that they were simply rooms with four desks and five people.

“The reality is that the war room is not making any difference. As we speak there is no train service on the Pretoria-Johannesburg Park Station corridor, a key economic route, and only two corridors were operational in Pretoria.

“This has been the case for the past three months. There is no train between Pretoria and Mabopane,” she said.

Carstens said the Pretoria-Pienaarspoort and Pretoria-Atteridgeville corridors were operational in the capital.

She said the issue of safety and the protection of Prasa assets – among the war rooms’ top priorities – was a huge concern as the agency had cancelled its contracts with security companies.

According to Carstens, the auditor-general had flagged the process to appoint the service providers. These had been providing security services to Prasa for 15 years.

“The service providers have been granted a court order reinstating them but Prasa is appealing, leaving assets unguarded and passengers’ safety at risk.

“We were told the police’s rail unit would take over but [union officials] have spotted only three officers in Park Station and they are nowhere to be seen elsewhere,” she said.

Carstens said that the army should be deployed to guard the rail infrastructure, adding that Prasa and Transnet shared infrastructure and that the consequences would be dire for the country’s economy if these agencies collapsed.

A senior security manager at Prasa, who cannot be named, said it was an open secret in the agency’s corridors that the war room was “hogwash”.

The manager said if Mbalula wanted the real progress report on the intervention, he could simply visit stations himself to get the people’s experiences.

“The war room is doing nothing and nothing will happen. There is just no political will. It is a huge mess. The agency is unable to deliver on its mandate and the poor, who rely on the service to get to work and school, are directly affected. Trains are still late, they get stuck and never arrive, vandalism is at its peak.

“What has changed? Nothing since the intervention and nothing will change. Instead it is getting worse,” the manager said.

Mbalula’s spokesperson, Ayanda Allie-Paine, said they were aware of negative sentiments regarding the intervention but said the minister would address all these issues when he gave the second progress report in Johannesburg today.

“These concerns will be raised in the briefing and based on [Mbalula’s first progress update], he must account whether there are improvements or not,” she said.

Allie-Paine added that the administrator was a month into the job and was expected to detail what they had discovered and how to address those issues.

The war room, which was given a 30-week implementation turnaround time, faces the mammoth task of tackling high levels of customer dissatisfaction, decline in passenger numbers attributable to safety, high levels of crime, vandalism and unpredictable service.

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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