This news aggregator site highlights South African labour news from a wide range of internet and print sources. Each posting has a synopsis of the source article, together with a link or reference to the original. Postings cover the range of labour related matters from industrial relations to generalist human resources.
GroundUp reports that according to Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), it has spent a total of R40.4-million to fix up the stations in Pretoria and rehabilitate the rail infrastructure.
Some 400 Prasa stations were vandalised during the Covid lockdown. In August 2021, GroundUp reported on the dilapidated state of train stations in Pretoria. At the time, Prasa said trains on the Pretoria-Pienaarspoort line would be functional by the end of March 2022 and that stations would be refurbished by December 2022. Prasa has indeed made some progress. A number of stations, including Pienaarspoort, Mears, Rissik, Walker, Loftus, Hartbeesspruit and Mamelodi, have been repaired and renovated, and are operational. When the Pretoria-Pienaarspoort line resumed services early this year, after being closed since lockdown in 2020, trains were not stopping at Mears, Rissik, Walker, Loftus and Devenish stations because these had been so badly vandalised. Trains also only ran twice a day. Now trains appear to be operating hourly and stopping at these stations once again. Prasa spokesperson Andiswa Makanda said the Pretoria-Pienaarspoort line has on average over 16,000 commuters per day and over 82,000 per week. She noted that that the line “is one of our busiest lines, with numbers running in the thousands during high-peak hours”. According to Makanda, Prasa has beefed-up security at stations to ensure that there is no more vandalism.
- Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Ezekiel Kekana at GroundUp
Get other news reports at the SA Labour News home page