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Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) administrator Bongizwe Mpondo says the passenger rail operator’s liabilities stand at a projected R9.7 billion with this figure set to fluctuate.
Speaking to media in Parliament on Tuesday night, Mpondo said Prasa’s exposure had factored in liabilities from current claims against the state-owned company and payment arrears for services such as electricity and municipal rates and services.
Mpondo said meetings were planned with Eskom on Wednesday on a disputed electricity bill. In February commuters were left stranded as Eskom cut power supply to the Western Cape train service for an unpaid bill of R4 million.
Prasa has since paid some of the money but are disputing the figure. Mpodo said Eskom is now also giving them 15 instead of the normal 30 days to pay their account.
On Thursday, Prasa meets with the City of Cape Town, which has also threatened to cut services after the company failed to pay around R122 million the City says is outstanding for municipal rates and services.
"We made a commitment with the City to pay R22 million by the 15th of this month. However, there are some areas of dispute to that bill. We will be meeting with them to reconcile our numbers."
Mpondo insists he has inherited the problems of a "broken" company that will not be able to cover its liabilities if it does not use some of the money designated for capital expenditure to cover its operating expenses.
Prasa has applied to National Treasury to convert some of the R30 billion of unused capex to opex.
Transport department director general Alec Moemi said they’ve requested that R1.9 billion of its current capex reserves be used for operating expenses and also want permission for another R5.3 billion of new capex allocations to Prasa to be converted to opex.
Moemi said they hoped to get an answer from Treasury by the end of this week.
