DA welcomes High Court declaring Mbalula’s PRASA Administrator 'illegal'

26 August 2020

The Democratic Alliance (DA) welcomes the ruling by the Western Cape Division of the High Court on Tuesday that the appointment of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) Administrator, BongisizweMpondo, by the Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula, was illegal and in contravention with core legislation. Judge Nathan Erasmus declared the appointment unlawful in terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA) which stipulates that if a public entity had a board, it was the board that was financially accountable.

Mpondo was a consultant in the Minister’s office when he was “redeployed” to PRASA as Administrator after Minister Mbalula dissolved the entity’s interim board in December 2019. This after Mbalula announced a “war room” on 8 August 2019 to improve train services on ground level.

Just over a year later less rail services are functional and huge damage has been caused under Minister Mbalula’s direct involvement – every interruptive action step has had opposite results. In fact, the 2018/2019 expenditure of R15.5 billion has exceeded income by nearly R2 billion. Routes have been cut – currently only 163 km of the 2 880 km rail track under PRASA’s control is functional. PRASA also failed to pay salaries and security companies’ contracts; electricity bills were overlooked and only 26% of its performance targets were met.

Manual train authorisations have escalated to over 1 500 000 amongst three provinces: Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Western Cape – with the most dramatic increases in Gauteng and KZN.

The PFMA and Legal Succession to the South African Transport Services Act does not allow for the kind of intervention undertaken by the Minister – neither the war room nor personal preference appointments with extended powers. The act is clear that only the board has the authority to appoint senior executives, not the Minister.

The DA further welcomes the correctional ruling by Judge Erasmus whereby Minister Mbalula has been ordered to appoint a new board within 60 days. For the interim, National Treasury must appoint an accounting officer from the ranks of another public enterprise within seven days. Rightfully, Judge Erasmus has pointed out that Minister Mbalula had more than enough time but deliberately delayed this statutory requirement to accommodate his ideas.

Content from the papers that were filed with the Court revealed that there was no performance management agreement in place and that performance targets relating to the appointment of Mpondo had been “left blank”.

Train services are in the worst state ever and immediate action should be taken to fix it – the first step of which should be to unite PRASA and Transnet as one rail entity as soon as possible.

Issued by Chris Hunsinger,DA Shadow Minister of Transport, 26 August 2020