Gallo Images / Beeld / Alet Pretorius
Prasa planned to spend R200 million of its security budget on a rushed community watch project to hire thousands of volunteers.
The programme, spearheaded by chairperson Leonard Ramatlakane, was met with resistance from the security department and paused before it properly got off the ground.
Prasa is now reviewing serious risks identified with the project, though transport minister Fikile Mbalula insists everything is on track.
Desperate to halt the theft and vandalism of billions of rands in railway infrastructure, the new board of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) conceived an ambitious plan: 5 000 volunteers would be hired as patrollers, supervised by ANC military veterans, at a cost of about R200 million.
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Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) board members and executives, Department of Transport (DoT) officials, and Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula were in for a grilling from Parliament’s Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) when they were called to account for the sorry state of the national commuter rail agency on Tuesday.
Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa (IFP), Bheki Hadebe (ANC), Sakhumzi Somyo (ANC), and Alf Lees (DA) showed no tolerance for empty answers. Hlengwa said that the performance of Prasa and the department at the committee hearing did not inspire confidence and that the attitude displayed by “certain people” was “of serious concern”. Lees said he was “gobsmacked by the clear lack of urgency”.