Cape Town's Rail Management must account for inability to protect trains

The latest burning of another eight train carriages in the Cape Town central train station is an indictment on those responsible for the management of our rail network and they must account to the City’s public for the ongoing inaction to protect this essential public transport infrastructure. 

I will be calling the Western Cape Police Commissioner, Lieutenant General Jula, as well as the PRASA and Metrorail management teams to a meeting to provide me with an urgent update on this critical matter as the public of Cape Town need to know that we will still have trains left by the end of the year. The City of Cape Town has previously offered to connect PRASA’s CCTV cameras to our Transport Management Centre and monitor the footage for PRASA, and I will be asking for an update on this matter. 

While the cause of yesterday’s fire remains to be determined, the reality is that more than 40 carriages have been burnt in arson attacks since 2017, crippling the backbone of public transport in the City of Cape Town, and yet not a single person has been charged as being responsible for any of the more than 10 incidents over the past two years. 

Cape Town Central station has been the target of at least seven, and possibly eight, separate arson incidents since July 2018. Surely after the first incident you put the most stringent measures in place to ensure this doesn’t happen again? How is it that criminals can so brazenly burn our trains time and again and get away with it? 

If we are to maintain law and order in this city there needs to consequences for criminal actions, and it is only national government’s South African Police Service (SAPS) through their detective services, and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) who can get results with these cases.

"It is sad to see our commuters in Cape Town suffer from the constant neglect of rail public transport. Additional to the Rail Enforcement Unit that the City has provided, we have over the past eight months offered to monitor PRASA's CCTV cameras in our control room. This is one way that PRASA can get a grip on the ongoing arson attacks." - Ald. JP Smith

The City of Cape Town and the Western Cape Government have already invested considerable amounts of money into providing a 100 officers for the Rail Enforcement Unit (one third is paid for by PRASA) to protect infrastructure that doesn’t even belong to the City or Province because National Government have been unable to protect their trains and commuters. This unit has seen significant success since its launch last year but clearly PRASA and Metrorail need to invest much more to keep our trains and commuters safe. Not doing so is outright negligence. 

Statement issued by Greg Wagner, Spokesperson to the Executive Mayor, 22 April 2019