THE PASSENGER Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) has committed to ambitious plans to reduce its over R48 million in irregular expenditure by 2024.
It told Parliament yesterday of a litany of problems including heavily vandalised infrastructure, lack of qualified personnel in all tiers, sullied procurement systems, encroachment of its infrastructure as well as high diesel expenses.
Appearing before the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), Minister Fikile Mbalula, acting board chairman Leonard Ramatlakane and acting CEO David Mphelo acknowledged poor audit outcomes over three years and a R1.9 billion loss in 2020/21, with operating costs at R15.5bn.
“The Covid-19 pandemic exposed Prasa to many risks, especially in emergency procurement, which inevitably resulted in some cases of corruption in the systems. Prasa is not generating sufficient revenue and will have to rely in subventions as fair revenue has declined over the last three years,” Mbalula said.
Irregular expenditure Mbalula said had been R3bn in 2019, which had fallen down to R1.3bn in 2021. He said there had been talks with President Cyril Ramaphosa on plans to reduce the malady completely by 2024.
He cited discrepancies identified by the auditor-general as including poor record keeping, lack of compliance, poor consequence management, financial irresponsibility, inadequate oversight and rampant corruption among the ranks of personnel, which had led to disciplinary action against 44 employees in three tiers of the organisation.
The vandalism of infrastructure was a big problem.
“It is a broader issue we have to handle. There is no operational expenditure, functional cash for the organisation. If we cannot generate money from our properties we have to make other means,” Ramatlakane said.
He said the rail fleet had now lost market share to public transport operators like taxis, as people found alternatives as Prasa crumbled and could not provide services on its routes.
Under intense questioning from DA MP Benedicta Maria van Minnen, Mphelo admitted that while diesel was expensive, it had resorted to using it to be able to provide a service as the electric systems had been heavily vandalised.
Mphelo spoke of plans to run only single tracks at peak hours to conserve diesel.
The group was also in trouble with its security service providers after it made independent means to secure an additional 3 100 boots on the ground, for which it had been taken to court for breach of agreements.
Many years ago, Prasa had over 10 000 people manning security, which was subsequently reduced to 2 000 officers.
The biggest headache cited by Prasa was the encroachment by informal dwellers on its properties and rail infrastructure, which required it go the legal route to evict them before the rails could be rehabilitated, a project set for completion by June this year.
“We do not have the money for the land required to resettle these people,” Ramatlakane said.
Previous Prasa revelations were that more than 3 000 ghost workers were being paid by the entity while at least R4bn would be required to bring its infrastructure to functionality.
banele.ginindza@inl.co.za
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