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Prasa's 'missing' millions

Johannesburg - More than R17m has gone "missing" from the Passenger Railways Agency of South Africa's (Prasa) coffers for the "rental" of a piece of land that had been provided to the parastatal free of charge.

This, along with other concerning findings, were contained in a provisional report by the auditor-general on Prasa's finances for the 2014-15 financial year, of which Beeld newspaper, part of Netwerk24, has obtained a copy.

The AG has identified material accounting errors in Prasa's books to the tune of a staggering R4bn, of which around R790m is attributed to irregular expenditure.

The "missing" R17m relates to an operating lease Prasa claimed it had paid for its "Gibela factory site" near Nigel in Gauteng's Ekurhuleni metro, where the Alstom-led Gibela consortium is set to build a manufacturing facility for Prasa's massive R51bn tender for new passenger coaches.

However, Beeld obtained documents from the Ekurhuleni council indicating that Prasa would not be liable for any rent for the land during the first two years of the rental agreement.

Ekurhuleni metro spokesperson Themba Gadebe confirmed a lease agreement between Prasa and the metro, concluded in November last year, stipulated that "Prasa was exempted from paying any rental for the first two years of the initial lease period" as a concession in exchange for the considerable economic benefits the new facility would bring to the metro.

It was, therefore, unclear why Prasa would allocate R17m for the property in question.

Axed Prasa CEO Lucky Montana yesterday insisted in a press release that he had maintained a stance of "no corruption under my watch" during his tenure as Prasa head.

* For this story and more news in Afrikaans, visit Netwerk24.

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