Publications
Partners
Cape Town - “Prasa has a problem. We acknowledge that. But let’s not say the problem is insurmountable. It’s fixable,” said Collins Letsoalo, acting CEO at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) on Tuesday.
He was part of a delegation that briefed parliament’s portfolio committee on transport about the agency’s latest annual performance plan.
Letsoalo made several admissions during the briefing, saying that Prasa has been “quite pathetic” with regard to stakeholder relations. “Our passengers for example don’t know when trains are delayed.”
He further admitted that the rail agency missed targets due to expenditure that was outstripping revenue. “Already in the first quarter of this year expenditure exceeded revenue by 38%,” he said.
READ: Components cannibalisation, acting staff throw Prasa off track
“Prasa doesn’t have money. And when you miss performance targets you don’t have money to pay people,” he continued. “We use 63% of our budget on personnel expenses.”
MPs were perturbed by Prasa’s presentation on Tuesday, accusing the agency of being on “auto-pilot” and saying there was no evident turnaround strategy since the new board came into place two years ago.
'We have a Montana problem'
Letsoalo responded admitting that Prasa had a “Montana” problem. “Frankly speaking, we have a Montana problem. Everything that goes wrong at Prasa we say ‘It’s Montana’,” he said in reference to the former CEO Lucky Montana. “We say it’s Montana as if we were never here. But we have to move on. We need to be fixated with the future.”
Prasa’s admission of non-performance in the past financial year is just one more addition to a long list of controversies plaguing the state-owned company.
On Monday, Letsoalo announced at a media briefing that Prasa incurred irregular expenditure of R13.9bn of which R9.8bn came from the previous financial year.
And last week, Prasa chairperson Popo Molefe made a disturbing allegation that the ANC received R80m from a controversial train deal with the help of a close friend of President Jacob Zuma.
Molefe’s utterances followed after Transport Minister Dipuo Peters had directed Molefe to halt a forensic investigation into Prasa’s contracts and tenders above R10bn.
The forensic investigation, conducted by Werksmans Attorneys, came in response to outgoing Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s finding that Prasa had awarded tenders improperly, contravening its supply chain management policy, the Public Finance Management Act and the Constitution.
Madonsela ordered a forensic investigation into contracts and tenders above R10m at Prasa.
Read Fin24's top stories trending on Twitter:
