Cape Town Executive Mayor Dan Plato has written to President Cyril Ramaphosa to urgently intervene in the mismanagement of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) rail network Cape Town Executive Mayor Dan Plato has written to President Cyril Ramaphosa to urgently intervene in the mismanagement of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) rail network, as it continues to severely impact Cape Town residents. Today we are informed through media reports of Prasa’s failed attempt to use state funds for political patronage, by employing ‘ANC military veterans’ to oversee untrained community members employed to protect the rail service. By December 2019, before the global coronavirus pandemic arrived in South Africa, approximately 160 train carriages, which make up close to 50 trainsets, had been burnt in separate arson attacks in Cape Town over a three-year period. Not a single person was prosecuted for this blatant economic sabotage that crippled the backbone of public transport in our mother city. The rail service is managed by the national government, through Prasa and Metrorail. The reported bungling of the People’s Responsibility to Protect Project, intended to employ 5000 volunteers to assist with monitoring and safety, is another example of Prasa’s inability to effectively manage and safeguard the rail network, which thousands of people rely on for their daily commute to work. Preliminary assessments of the damage done to public rail infrastructure is reported to be an estimated R4 billion. The City of Cape Town previously provided the manpower for a rail safety unit, and together with the Western Cape Government, covered two thirds of the cost of this unit to protect national government’s rail infrastructure. Metrorail did not renew the service; despite that they were only paying for one third of the value of the project. In 2019, the City of Cape Town attempted to begin the lengthy process of understanding the impact of devolving the rail function to the City of Cape Town from Prasa by appointing a multidisciplinary team of rail professionals, who would have assisted our transport directorate with putting together a high-level business plan. We were advised by National Treasury that authorising such a study would constitute wasteful expenditure, forcing us to abandon the very critical exercise. The rail service in Cape Town has, under Prasa’s continued management, seen no improvement, and has actually deteriorated further, with a 66% reduction in rail commuters since 2019 confirming the collapse of this critical service. As a result, the City of Cape Town, earlier this year, petitioned the National Minister of Transport, the Minister of Finance as well as President Ramaphosa to give us the required permissions to relaunch the study we attempted to initiate in 2019. To date, we have yet to receive a response, while the rail system continues to collapse under Prasa’s management. It is disappointing that instead of acknowledging their own shortcomings in addressing the challenges faced, and providing solutions to the problems, the Prasa chairperson recently attempted to shift the blame by claiming that the City of Cape Town has not cooperated with them in trying to find a solution to the illegal land invasion on land where the central line operates. The central line, a critical route in Cape Town’s public transport service, has been brought to a complete halt, and has forced thousands of commuters to find other, more expensive transport options. With little to no maintenance on the other Prasa rail lines, it is only a matter of time that the inability of Prasa to address this issue leads to the whole system ceasing to function. The facts are that the City warned Prasa in 2020 about the imminent threats of land invasion to their land, but they failed to act. National Ministers stopped efforts to remove the land invaders and the SA Human Rights Commission protected the land invaders. Law abiding residents who made use of the rail service were cast aside in favour of supporting law breakers. PRASA also failed to lodge trespassing complaints with SAPS, which would have allowed the City to act on their properties before the Disaster Management Act regulations and SA Human Rights Commission’s court interdict prevented us from doing counter-spoliation. After the land was illegally invaded and occupied, Prasa asked the City of Cape Town to give up land earmarked for housing opportunities to accommodate the illegal land invaders. The City refused to do so and advised Prasa to use some of their own unused land. They refused to do so and the central line remains closed. This is disappointing given that Prasa has the available land to resolve this closure. Together with the former Western Cape Transport MEC Bonginkosi Madikizela, former Mayoral Committee Member for Transport, Alderman Felicity Purchase and city officials, we have hosted and attended meetings to engage the National Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, and Prasa officials, in an attempt to assist them with getting the rail service up and running, but to no avail. The City of Cape Town continues to work with willing partners towards finding solutions and remains committed to working with Prasa towards finding meaningful solutions to address the many problems plaguing the rail service. Source: City Of Cape Town