Prasa must provide record of decision on Montana’s exit

17 July 2015

The DA calls on the Board of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) to release the record of decision pertaining to the premature ejection of Prasa CEO, Lucky Montana, from serving his six-month notice period.

Montana will receive every cent of his six-month notice period pay, funded by taxpayers. According to the 2012/13 annual report, the most recent that could be found, in 2013 Prasa paid Montana R4.7 million. For this reason, the truth of his ejection must be made public.

This is money could have been spent on upgrading rail infrastructure, making our commuter trains safer, providing security at train stations and improving technologies.

It was announced yesterday that Mr Montana would be immediately released from serving his notice period, which would have ended in December this year, with full pay. Mr Montana resigned in June this year and was serving out a six month notice period.

The DA believes that government and their entities should at all times act honestly, transparently and in the interests of all South Africans. This is essential especially when decisions involve the use and spending of taxpayers’ hard-earned money, which must rather fund improved train services to allow South Africans to access jobs and opportunities.

Prasa is now leaderless and in a state of crisis as is evidenced by the numerous scandals surrounding it. These scandals include buying trains that are too large for our tracks, its head of engineering services being unqualified, and failing to hedge the exchange rate on the contract for the new trains, which will drive up the contract price significantly.

It is time for Prasa to come clean and be open with the people of South Africa who essentially fund it with their taxes and who rely on Prasa to deliver train services to get to and from work every day.

Statement issued by Manny de Freitas MP, DA Shadow Minister of Transport, July 17 2015