Johannesburg - The tit-for-tat spat between Transport Minister Dipuo Peters and the dissolved board of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) continued on Monday, with accusations and counter-accusations of inefficiencies and infighting and corruption at the embattled rail agency flying between them.
Peters said the former board had been found wanting in instilling good corporate governance and sound financial management systems at the ailing agency.
“I have on numerous occasions and in formal communication directed the board to focus on pertinent issues affecting the performance of the agency and not be distracted by side issues. But my calls often went unheeded by the board,” Peters said.
The former board, which was led by ANC veteran Popo Molefe, has launched an urgent court challenge to nullify its dissolution by Peters last week.
Molefe hit back on Monday, accusing Peters of having removed the board in a bid to block its investigations in financial mismanagement totalling R14 billion, and flagged in the auditor-general’s (AG) report last year.
The rail agency last year received an unqualified AG report after it was found to have lost R13.9 billion in the 2016 financial year due to irregular expenditure, a big jump from the R500 million wastage reported in the 2014/15 financial year.
Peters said another irksome issue was the board’s failure to rein in the costs of the multimillion-rand Werksmans investigations into financial mismanagement at Prasa.
“Both in the first and second year, the investigation was not budgeted for.
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“We had written to the board to look at managing the investigation with a view of avoiding irregularly expenditure. This directive was not adhered to,” charged Peters.
Molefe denied Peters’s claims, saying the board had taken proactive steps through the Werkmans investigations to rein in corruption at the state-owned enterprise.
“We had written to the minister to ask her to prevail on the Directorate for Priority Crime Investigations to co-operate with us, so we can deal with the criminal matters that emerged from the Werkmans inquiry.
“The problem here lies with institutions that are mandated to deal with corruption, but are inefficient in doing so,” Molefe pointed out.
The long-simmering tensions came to a boil last week when Peters dismissed the board with immediate effect, accusing it of failing to adhere to good corporate governance in running the rail agency.
Peters further denied Molefe’s earlier contention that the board had never enjoyed any co-operation from the department and Peters. Her claims were supported by her department’s acting director-general Mathabatha Mokonyama, who said the minister had met with the former Prasa board more than any other of the agencies that fall under the department.
“Out of the 12 agencies that report to the department, the minister has met with the dissolved board more than any other agencies’ boards. And because of the nature and challenges faced by the rail agency, the minister was in constant contact with the board,” Mokonyama said.
‘Unsolicited advise’
Last month, the former board fired Collins Letsoalo, a senior departmental official who was seconded by the department to Prasa in an acting capacity following the unceremonial sacking of former chief executive Lucky Montana last year.
The board showed Letsoalo the door after claims that he had hiked his salary by 350 percent to R5.9 million since taking the helm. It referred him back to the department for disciplinary action.
Meanwhile, Peters said she had decided to ignore the “unsolicited advice” she had received from the board’s lawyers imploring her not to proceed with appointing an interim board. She said she had decided to rope-in former Sanral chief executive Nazir Alli as an interim chairman.