#SAACrisis: PRASA fighting ANC battles
24 October 2017
The Democratic Alliance (DA) learnt late yesterday that our billboard, which highlights the ANC-led government’s misuse and abuse of the people’s money, has been removed due to pressure from the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA).
We are therefore considering legal action against PRASA who we believe acted outside of their jurisdiction and authority by ordering that the billboard be removed.
PRASA, who owns the land outside Park Station where the billboard was erected rents the space to third parties. To now claim that we needed to seek permission from them for the billboard to be erected, despite the billboard not being owned by them, is opportunistic. Also, we were granted permission from the Johannesburg Metropolitan Police Department (JMPD) for our event and signed a contract with the billboard owner to rent the space.
Ahead of yesterday’s billboard unveiling, PRASA deployed extra security personnel to move our Activists from the public area under the billboard, and became forceful and disrespectful when we tried to explain the process we had followed with JMPD. Our event proceeded under the forceful watch of PRASA security and officials.