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Passenger Rail Agency SA (Prasa) is facing a crisis that could affect the operation of trains in Gauteng due to damaged infrastructure.
It will cost Prasa billions of rand to repair the damage to the rails, overhead electrical cables and railway stations. The theft and vandalism are currently taking place day and night with no clear interest by law enforcement to stop it. The damage is going to leave hundreds of thousands of Metrorail users in limbo when the lockdown regulations are eased to level 1 and rains allowed to return to full operation.
In July, Prasa opened the Mamelodi to Pretoria line for limited operations. The trains were pulled by a diesel engine after overhead cabling was stolen. Two other lines were opened in the Eastern Cape, one in Durban and another in Cape Town.
Plans were afoot to open other corridors when the country moves to level 1 of the national lockdown. But given the state of the infrastructure in Gauteng, commuters might wait longer before trains start running again. Apart from reluctance by law enforcement to stop the criminality on the railways, the infrastructure damage got worse during the lockdown after Prasa had ended its security contracts at train stations.
Sowetan recently visited some of the railway stations in the province and witnessed a dire situation. Roofs at the stations were removed and ticket offices ripped apart.
At Westbury station on the West Rand, the fence around the station had been removed. It was the same at other stations in Soweto. The rail in the line between Johannesburg and Germiston was removed and train coaches parked at the stations had been severely vandalised.
Doornfontein station, which was upgraded ahead of the 2010 Fifa World Cup because of its proximity to Ellis Park stadium, has become a home of nyaope addicts. During Sowetan visit on Thursday, a young addict was busy removing the fence.
Rail engineer Willem Sprong estimates that it could take at least two-and-a-half years before an electric train runs in Gauteng again.
Sprong said Prasa had already admitted to him that 87km of the 102km in the Gauteng north had its overhead cable vandalised or stolen.
Furthermore, Prasa informed Sprong, who conducts investigations for the Railway Safety Regulator, that five substations which supply electricity to this line have been completely vandalised.
In the same corridor Prasa reported 13 stations been vandalised.
“To repair just the overhead cables will cost about R4m per km. There is regulation that prevents you from reusing overhead mast [poles which hold the overhead cable] that is vandalised or broken. You need to cast a new foundation, put a new mast. Everything has to be new,” Sprong said.
Sprong said the transformers at the substations have unique designs and are not manufactured in SA.
“With the current procurement process to import that transformer it will take you almost two years at a cost of about R6m, just for the transformer. I reckon to repair the five stations would cost up to R6m per substation.
“It will take about 12 months just to go through the design, the procurement phase and get a contractor. My estimate is that I would be very surprised to see an electric train running in the next 30 months. You cannot even run a diesel train at the moment. In some places they have stolen the clips that keep the rail in place [on the ground],” he said.
Chairperson of the portfolio committee on transport in the Gauteng legislature Dumisani Dakile said security problems at Prasa were spotted before the current crisis.
“We warned them before the lockdown. We could see that there is no security plan in place to make sure that this thing does not happen ... We think there has been a lapse on the side of management and we feel some people must take responsibility. One of the responsibilities of management is to protect means of production. We think someone has failed,” Dakile said.
Prasa spokesperson Makhosini Mgitywa said the agency is yet to quantify and cost the damage on rail infrastructure.
“There is ongoing assessment of the damage. The damage is extensive and it is fair to say that it is in the billions of rand.”
Mgitywa said security contracts were ended by Prasa as there were no penalties when infrastructure was damaged and “there was no value”. These contracts were also identified as irregular by the auditor-general and the public protector.
“The bulk of those contracts ended in April. At the beginning of May the agreement that Prasa had with the SAPS was supposed to kick in but it was during the lockdown and [police] resources had been reprioritised from guarding the infrastructure to enforce the lockdown,” Mgitywa.
He said there was a suspicion within Prasa that the security companies could be involved in the vandalism as the agency believes they are trying to put on pressure for the contracts to be reinstated.
“When we say a specific line is going to be reopened, it gets targeted and vandalised extensively. Sometimes the people do not even steal the cables, they just vandalise them.”
Mgitywa said transport minister Fikile Mbalula has put together a task team made up of Prasa, SAPS State Security Agency, department of justice, National Prosecuting Authority and other stakeholders.
This task team has developed a Prasa-integrated security plan which he said has started to yield results with the arrest of some of the agency’s employees.
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