Parliament - The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) has painted a picture of a company limping from one crisis to the next with billions being investigated in several cases of corruption.
Prasa chairman Popo Molefe and acting chief executive Collins Letsoalo admitted to the Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa) in Parliament that the organisation was facing serious problems.
Molefe said some of the documents were destroyed when the auditor-general was looking into the books of Prasa. Other than the R14.6 billion in irregular expenditure that was picked up by Auditor-General Kimi Makwetu in his audit report, Prasa is investigating another R24bn in cases of tender fraud and corruption.
The R24bn was uncovered by the investigation conducted by Prasa into a number of contracts.There are a number of investigations into the contracts and irregular expenditure at Prasa.
The National Treasury was conducting its own investigation following the report of the public protector.
Prasa has also appointed a law firm to conduct a forensic investigation into corruption.Letsoalo told Scopa he would not go to Parliament and claim everything was in order at Prasa.
“We must not come here and say we are a shining armour at Prasa. We must not come here and say that everything is hunky-dory at Prasa,” he said.
“We have a problem at Prasa and we are sorting it out. When systems collapse, they collapse. The auditor-general is not saying something is not there. There is irregular expenditure that was incurred under our watch,” said Letsoalo.
There were contracts that were irregularly signed, he said.
Prasa chairman Popo Molefe said their own investigations have discovered other cases of corruption of R24bn. He said they were dealing with the issue of the destroyed documents by Prasa’s senior officials.Some had been disciplined and others jumped ship, he said.
“We can talk until we are blue in the face if some of the things are not heard by some of the MPs. There is nothing we can do about it,” he said.
He told Scopa members that the R24bn was revealed by an investigation undertaken by Prasa.
“The R24bn is not even in the AG’s report; we are mentioning it because this is what we uncovered,” said Molefe.
Letsoalo also confirmed to Scopa that the amount of the contracts they were investigating amounted to R24bn. He said they have referred some of the cases to the Hawks.
Scopa chairman Themba Godi reiterated to Prasa officials that the committee was the watchdog of the public purse and wanted accountability for every cent used.
He said irregular expenditure has become a serious matter that needed to be investigated to determine if there was justification for the use of funds or if there was criminality involved.
“If you look at all the departments and entities Prasa had a staggering figure in that category,” said Godi of the irregular expenditure.
This was also identified by Makwetu in his audit report two weeks ago that Prasa contributed the bulk of irregular expenditure across the state.
Godi said they will be able to get to the bottom of the issues at the agency. Members of Scopa on Wednesday expressed frustration at the scale of corruption at Prasa following the investigations and findings of different institutions.
MPs said they were angry at the level and scale of corruption without consequences. ANC MP Thapelo Chiloane said she has been left numb by the number of cases under investigation highlighting the depth of corruption in tenders.
Ntombovuyo Mente of the EFF described Prasa as a sinking ship.
She said the billions of rand that have been lost at Prasa raised several questions.
“You make us believe that Prasa is a vehicle for corruption,” she said.
She accused Prasa of destroying documents meant for Makwetu to hide corruption.David Ross of the DA said there should be proper control at Prasa.
He said it was bad that the organisation was responsible for most of the irregular expenditure in government.
ANC MP Ezekiel Kekana said Prasa needed to outline deadlines for the completion of investigations by the law firm.
He said this would help in identifying weaknesses and deal with those involved in wrongdoing.
Letsoalo said they have given the law firm six months to conclude the investigations.
He said that in cases where they find evidence of corruption they will report the cases to the Hawks.
The law firm was doing most of the investigation and a number of cases. But they wanted these cases to be finalised in six months, he said.
Political Bureau