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Talks under way to solve trains impasse

Johannesburg - The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) and Transnet were in "high-level talks" on Monday to try and resolve an impasse that has seen the suspension of Shosholoza Meyl's long-distance service.

Prasa CEO Lucky Montana blamed Transnet for the situation in a statement released on Monday morning.

"Prasa is not receiving quality and reliable services from Transnet to enable it to render decent train services to passengers," said Montana.

"It will be difficult to continue to run these services when service levels are deteriorating on any given day."

Prasa spokesperson Nana Zenani said there were "top-level" negotiations going on behind the scenes.

"Prasa and Transnet are doing everything in their power to address the issue of service suspensions of the Shosholoza Meyl long distance trains and commence with the running of the service without further delay," said Zenani.

"Prasa is currently in high-level talks with Transnet to jointly resolve the issues and to immediately restore a skeleton service."

Prasa announced on Thursday that Shosholoza Meyl would run a limited long-distance service for the next two weeks, due to a dispute with Transnet over payment and the services it delivered to Prasa.

Montana said: "Prasa pays Transnet huge amounts for the maintenance of Shosholoza Meyl locomotives as well as additional amounts to get access to the Transnet network."

But he said Transnet failed to offer proper services.

"It is totally unacceptable that Shosholoza Meyl's on-time performance stands at 35%, with passengers experiencing delays of up to 12 hours (daily) due to failure by Transnet to do its work despite its high prices."

Zenani said an agreement was made in April 2009 when Prasa took over the running of Shosholoza Meyl that long distance trains will be guaranteed access on the lines historically operated by Transnet.

"In addition, Prasa gave Transnet the first right of refusal to take over all engineering works such as the servicing of locomotives, the inspection of locomotives, refurbishing of trains and access to the system in order to run the long distance trains," said Zenani.

"A capped amount of R300m per annum was agreed upon between Prasa and Transnet and over R461m had been paid by 15 July 2010, the rest of the amount awarded stands in dispute between the two entities."

Zenani said Prasa had asked Transnet for an itemised invoice for its services rendered, which Prasa was yet to receive.

"The situation is untenable... Our reputation is being tainted," said Zenani.

She said Transnet often made Shosholoza Meyl trains wait on the side of the railway for up to 12 hours to allow its goods trains access.

Also, she said Transnet did not do proper work in maintaining and servicing the Shosholoza Meyl trains.

But Transnet has denied all the allegations.

In a statement on Friday, Transnet said there were no maintenance or other disputes behind the suspension.

While there were significant payment delays and pricing disputes, Transnet continued to provide maintenance and upgrade services to Prasa, said Transnet spokesperson Mboniso Sigonyela.

He said Prasa had revised governance processes relating to the manner in which it would authorise work performed by Transnet Rail Engineering (TRE) in mid-July.

"The revisions resulted in approximately 70 locomotives awaiting maintenance due to Prasa's inability to comply with these very same processes."

Sigonyela said Transnet officials had made numerous attempts to get Prasa officials to address the matter, but they had been unsuccessful and "the situation continues".

He said Transnet had not even received official correspondence from Prasa on its decision to move the maintenance of its rolling stock away from TRE. "The company became aware of this decision on Friday through the media," he said.

Sigonyela said on Monday morning that he had nothing to add to Transnet's Friday statement.

 - Sapa

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