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Johannesburg - Former Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) CEO Lucky Montana will go to court to challenge findings made by Public Protector Thuli Madonsela implicating him in maladministration at the parastatal.
Montana, speaking during a Tuesday morning interview on Talk Radio 702, said: "The Public Protector is not a judge, so I'm going to take this matter to a court of law, as a court to review it and set it aside. That is my main objective."
He told the broadcaster he would take each of the findings against him on review because he feels "they are false, they are factually incorrect".
Said Montana: "I think all of the allegations, all of the findings the public protector has made, including on the issues that she said I was personally involved, I don't even accept them."
On Monday, Madonsela said disciplinary action has to be taken against Montana for maladministration at the parastatal.
Prasa board chairperson Popo Molefe had to report details of the alleged financial misconduct that took place to the Treasury and the auditor general, and explain what he intended to do about it.
Montana widely implicated
Montana was widely implicated in Madonsela’s report on maladministration at Prasa.
In 2012 the SA Transport and Allied Workers Union reported allegations of corruption and tender irregularities at Prasa to the public protector.
According to the report, the complaints were principally levelled against Prasa management and Montana.
Allegations included financial mismanagement, procurement irregularities, unmanaged conflict of interest, nepotism/cronyism/corruption, irregular appointments and maladministration.
“About 17 tenders and contracts collectively exceeding R2.8bn were specifically identified by the Complainant for investigation of supply chain irregularities, including non-competitive processes, cronyism, scope creep, cost overruns, overpayment and fruitless and wasteful expenditure,” Madonsela said at the beginning of her report.
Madonsela said she had held numerous meetings with Montana and his lawyers which were chronologically outlined in the report entitled 'Derailed'.
The report directly implicates Montana on eight charges, including:
• The improper termination of contracts of seven cleaning companies followed by an irregular replacement with two other companies which constituted maladministration, abuse of power and improper conduct.
• The improper appointment of a media company to produce a magazine for the agency. Montana acted "unlawfully" and"‘displayed a disconcerting disregard for the rule of law".
• The improper award by Montana of a R10m tender for the development of a "Contingency Emergency Preparedness Programme" for Metrorail without a competitive process.
• Fruitless and wasteful expenditure estimated at R5m after the improper termination of contracts of five executives.
• Improper suspensions which gave rise to labour dispute settlements amounting to R3.35m.
Montana was dismissed on July 16, amid allegations that the state-owned entity had put millions of rands into new diesel locomotives which allegedly do not conform to South African rail line standards.
A statement released by Prasa on the day did not disclose any details about why Montana was fired.
