Cape Town - The United National Transport Union (Untu) welcomed the dismissal of four senior protection services officials from Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) after being found guilty of procurement irregularities.
The union said those were the first dismissals that emanated from the findings made by former public protector advocate Thuli Madonsela in her report on Prasa, entitled Derailed, published in 2015.
Untu general secretary Steve Harris said the four were found, after a disciplinary hearing, to have committed irregularities in the awarding of security services contracts in 2009.
“Eleven years later the chairperson for the disciplinary hearing stated that the four officials failed to ensure that Prasa maintained an appropriate procurement system,” Harris said.
He said that was the first time that Prasa has addressed some of the serious findings made against several officials in the report.
“Untu supports Prasa in its efforts to root out corruption and to get rid of rotten apples that are delaying its efforts to become a proud, safe and reliable provider of passenger rail in the country.”
Harris said it was in the interest of all Prasa employees that the business is run with proper procurement systems to sustain a reliable service.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said the decisive action against corruption and malfeasance would entrench a culture of good governance and restore accountability at Prasa.
“When appointing the Prasa administrator Bongisizwe Mpondo, Prasa was characterised as a broken entity in urgent need of repair. His latest move is one of many steps taken to clean up, restore and launch the entity into a positive trajectory,” he said.
Mpondo said: “The malfeasance in supply chain management and the protection services departments has undermined Prasa’s ability to ensure the protection of its infrastructure, which is critical to the proper functioning of the passenger rail system.
“Prasa will continue to address the problem of irregular procurement through capacitation of employees for better understanding of the processes as well as through consequence management.”