Prasa has been accused of not performing adequate line testing before relaunching the Shosholoza Meyl service.
The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) has been accused of not performing adequate line testing before relaunching the Shosholoza Meyl service after a passenger train had to cut its trip from Johannesburg to Cape Town short due to “infrastructure challenges”.
Prasa recently announced the return of the Shosholoza Meyl routes, which would run to Cape Town and Durban from Johannesburg for less than R1 000 a trip. However, the first trip to Cape Town since its relaunch had to be cut short and forced commuters to travel the rest of their journey by buses on Friday, due to stolen cables.
The EFF labelled the inconvenience for commuters as a “perennial failure” due to the collapse of Prasa and has now threatened legal action against Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga.
“These technical issues were said to be due to the theft of overhead cables; however, this is unacceptable as the Railway Safety Regulator requires a line test before each trip.
“Therefore, Prasa either did not perform the line test and they are being entirely dishonest, proving poor planning and chronic incapacity on their part.
“This is unsurprising, however, considering Prasa has a proven track record of neglect, inability to maintain infrastructure and utter disregard they are meant to provide for the citizens of South Africa. The collapse of the railway infrastructure of this country has now affected thousands of South Africans, who ought to be heading home for the festive season,” a statement by the EFF read.
The DA’s MPL for transport, Thabi Mabena, said the Department of Transport had again demonstrated its “disregard” for the well-being and convenience of South African citizens.
“The PR exercise surrounding the Shosholoza Meyl’s return has ended in a predictable debacle, showcasing a high level of incompetence and ineptitude.
“The DA is not surprised by these events, given the ANC government’s focus on public relations instead of addressing the root causes of rail infrastructure challenges. The DA is committed to prioritising infrastructure replenishment, new rail builds, and increased maintenance budgets,” said Mabena.
While enquiries to Prasa on Sunday were not answered by deadline, on Friday it had said the trip had covered 1 458km by rail when it experienced challenges near Wellington Station.
The journey was halted at Wellington Station “due to theft of overhead cables” between Kaalfontein and Muldersvlei.
The rest of the 70km journey passengers had to be transferred to buses to reach Cape Town Station.
Prasa said: “This incident, though beyond our direct control, underscores the pressing challenge of copper wire theft affecting our services.”
In respect of the threat of legal action, Chikunga’s spokesperson, Collen Msibi, said: “The department will not comment on this pronouncement at this stage.
“We are, however, on course in turning around the passenger rail service having recovered over 20 rail lines in the country as part of the government rail recovery programme.”
Cape Times
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