After four years of residents along the Central Line not having any passenger trains in their corridor, at least seven train stations will run on a limited service by the end of April.
Operations at a total of 11 stations in the corridor which was once the busiest in the Western Cape were suspended due to rampant vandalism and infrastructure damage that could be attributed to the removal of security personnel, and the establishments of informal settlement on top of the rail trail tracks which escalated during the Covid-19 pandemic lockdown.
According to Metrorail regional manager Raymond Maseko, 121 train stations were operating in the province prior to the pandemic but by the time the hard lockdown was over and trains could resume operations in July 2020 only 14 of the province’s stations were able to resume train services.
“Of these, 11 were along the central line which was battling with illegal occupations. Much work is being done to recover this corridor. We are planning to have limited services running from Cape Town to Stock Road, Mandalay, Nolungile, Kuyasa, Chris Hani and Khayelitsha. Then hopefully recover the rest including Philippi by June 2024. The progress is because of Operation Bekele where the families are being relocated. We also have more than 1000 additional securities, using high-safety technology. We have also started the walling at our depots and will be rolled out to the different corridors,” he said.
Maseko revealed this during the Standing Committee on Public Accounts’ (Scopa) third follow-up over-sight visit to the embattled corridor to check on the status of the line, physical security deployment, and the current relocation of illegal settlements.
About 891 households have been relocated from Philippi and Nyanga rail tracks to land in Stock Road and more than 2 000 people in Langa are yet to be relocated to land possibly in Makhaza in Khayelitsha.
The residents of Stock Road who are expected to “temporarily” live at the site for five years told the committee that the City has been failing in their service delivery obligations.
“The City was delivering water twice a week and once a day. We are requesting that at least three times a week including Saturday. We also had an issue where the water was making us sick because it was salty. We complained and things went back to normal. However on Monday the water was murky and salty again. The water truck drivers claimed it was chlorine used to wash the trucks. The residents were angry and forced them to drink the water if it was safe but they refused and went away with it. Cape Town is also hot and the plastic toilets need to be cleaned frequently which they are not doing,” said Zanele Ngcobondwana.
Deputy mayor Eddie Andrews said he will investigate the claims about the water making people sick and the request for frequent waste collection.
Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa voiced that they were cautiously optimistic that Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) would meet its deadline of ensuring train services between Cape Town and Khayelitsha and Kapteinsklip by the end of April.
He also called for heads to roll in relation to decisions taken by the former board.
“If we are being honest we would not be here if security personnel contracts who safely guarded the train station were not removed. Two weeks ago I met with the current board of Prasa and made it clear this exercise of recovery would be incomplete if the former Prasa board members were not pursued, held liable and accountable for the decisions they took which has cost millions and billions of rand.
The committee wants the recovery of the Central Line to occur parallel to consequence management for those former board members,” said Hlengwa.
The committee said their urgent expectation was expediting the permanent relocation of the Stock Road residents.
“The committee has been informed by Prasa that the application for the permanent relocation of the residents will be submitted to the City by March 22, 2024 for processing.”
Cape Times