GroundUp reports that Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula has promised that Cape Town’s Central railway line will be functional by December.

During an oversight visit on Friday, Mbalula said in July there would be a limited service from Cape Town to Langa, Pinelands and Bonteheuwel. The line that connects at Bonteheuwel to Khayelitsha, Nyanga, Philippi and Mitchells Plain would open in December, he stated. The Central Line, which is the busiest line serving the poorest communities, including Khayelitsha, Mitchells Plain, Nyanga and Bonteheuwel, has been suspended, except for a brief interval, since 2018. Since then families have set up informal settlements on the track in Langa, Philippi and Khayelitsha. Mbalula sharply rebuked management of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) for problems with the line. “Our biggest problem here is not only people who built shacks on the railway tracks, our biggest problem here is management negligence,” he said. “What are you running here, because you are employed to run trains?” he asked of Prasa acting group CEO David Mphelo, regional manager Kaparo Molefi and others. Mbalula went on to say: “We can no longer allow people to earn big salaries and all that they know is to give inadequate answers and yet they are managers. You can’t be a manager, managing a railway system and you don’t have a plan. Every day you come to work, what do you say you are doing when everything is just falling apart?” Mphelo said that Parow station, on the Northern Line, would start operating in December, but no date had been set for the return of the service as far as Wellington.

• Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Tariro Washinyira at GroundUp

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