Press Statement dated 27 August 2018
Government and its Minister of Transport, Dr. Blade Nzimande, can be held accountable for any injuries employees of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) and its millions of commuters may occur due to its blatant disregard for basic safety procedures set down by the Railway Safety Regulator (RSR).
The RSR has a Constitutional duty to ensure that the state-owned enterprise (SOE) implements the provisions of the National Railway Safety Regulator Act “to provide for safety standards and regulatory practices for the protections of persons, property and the environment”.
Steve Harris, General Secretary of the United National Transport Union (UNTU), who represents more than 50% of employees working for Prasa, says over the past two years Prasa’s implementation has been dismal where critical aspects of safety management is concerned.
“Currently more than 50% of the signals used by train crews are out of order due to theft and vandalism. Between 11 January 2018 and 30 June 2018 more than 320 000 manual train authorisations (MTA’s) had been issued by Prasa. The number keeps on increasing and there is no indication that Prasa is even attempting to normalize the situation,” says Harris.
MTA’s make trains more exposed to coalitions and derailments as human error may occur as what happened at the Geldenhuys Station in Germiston on the East Rand in January 2018 when three trains were authorized to continue the same route due to MTA’s being used. More than 200 commuters were injured, and one died, says Harris.
Jaco du Plessis, an independent attorney specialising in civil claims, says Government remains responsible to abide to safety regulations where passenger rail is concerned. “Government, the custodian of all SOE’s in our Constitution, is accountable when injuries occur,” says Du Plessis.
Just last week a report by the auditor-general showed that Prasa accumulated a loss of R4,7 billion in 2017. Du Plessis says Prasa’s loses is not the problem of the taxpayer.
Harris says the RSR refused to issue Prasa with a Safety Permit on 31 July 2018 after the passenger rail did nothing to comply within the standards set-out by the RSR within a year.
“Unfortunately the Minister of Transport intervened and forced the RSR to issue Prasa with a compliance permit valid till 31 August 2018. Currently, UNTU is aware that Prasa is still unable to comply. This Union would like to see the Minister taking true leadership in admitting the complete failure of this service instead of forcing the RSR to issue temporary permits knowing that all is not well, and staff and commuters are being exposed,” says Harris.
UNTU has issued a directive to all our Branches to inform the Union of each incident irrespective of the seriousness to compose a comprehensive timeline. This will enable the Union to approach the Court if needs be.
Issued on behalf of United National Transport Union (UNTU) by Sonja Carstens, Media and Liaison Officer