Engineering News reports that Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula on Wednesday announced Alec Moemi as the new director-general (DG) of the Department of Transport, effective 1 August.  

He was formerly the DG of the Department of Sports and Recreation.  The transport department has been without a full-time DG since 2016.  Mbalula indicated that he had asked the new DG to immediately prioritise issues that impact on the department’s employees and the filling of critical vacancies, 21 of which were senior management posts and six of which were deputy DG vacancies.  Mbalula noted as an immediate priority the urgent implementation of interventions aimed at addressing critical challenges facing the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa).  To ensure passenger and user safety, the DG has been tasked with developing an all-encompassing national policy on safety and security in public transport, which must lead to direct in-sourcing of at least 80% of security personnel by Prasa, with these security officers to receive their basic training from the police.  On the United National Transport Union-led railway safety strike set for Friday, Mbalula said the department had mitigation measures in place to deal with the strike and to ensure that it was conducted safely.  Regarding public transport, Mbalula said the department would be operationalising integrated public transport networks or bus rapid transit systems across five additional cities of Mbombela, eThekwini, Rustenburg, Polokwane and Mangaung, over the next nine months.

• Read the full original of the informative report on the above at Engineering News

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