Prasa’s oversized locomotives: Minister Peters' approval requires Ad-Hoc Committee investigation  

15 March 2016

Today, I presented a notice of motion before the National Assembly (NA) to establish an Ad-Hoc Committee tasked with investigating Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters’, knowingly signing-off Prasa’s (Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa) order of oversized train locomotives. This despite her apparent awareness of the potential fatal risk these locomotives pose to South African passengers. 

In her replies to a DA Parliamentary question, Ms Peters confirms that the Prasa Afro4000 locomotives “are within the required scale”, and “within [the] required dimension[s]” of South African railways; two train accidents (one fatal) prove that these Afro4000 locomotives are both unsafe and too tall for local use, as Prasa engineers have previously warned. 

If the Minister was indeed aware of these issues then she has knowingly misled Parliament by providing inaccurate and misleading replies to questions posed officially by the DA. This needs to be investigated and so I will, today, be tabling a substantive motion requesting the that National Assembly investigate Minister Peters’ behaviour and knowledge using the available processes of Parliament: the establishment of an Ad-Hoc Committee. 

In August, 2015 media reports revealed that the new locomotives were in fact of an incorrect specification, particularly the height of the locomotive which proved to be simply too high for safe use on South African railways. Shortly after these facts came to light it was revealed that officials claiming to be qualified engineers were, in fact, inadequately qualified (if at all) to take, any, let alone the major engineering decisions that were made in relation to the order of the Afro4000 locomotives. 

How it is possible that the political head of this department was not aware of the facts that have come to light? If she was unaware of these, it speaks volumes to just how out of touch Minister Peters is from her portfolio.  Throughout this debacle, I have consistently been stating that the Minister is too removed from both her department and the entities under her ambit; the above is an unambiguous example of this. 

The DA will continue to be proactive in ensuring the safety of all public transport users. This government cannot be allowed to continue to act negligently risking countless lives. 

Statement issued by Manny de Freitas MP, DA Shadow Minister of Transport, 16 March 2016