Pretoria – Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has announced the new Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) interim board to oversee the agency until a new board is appointed.
The interim board includes former South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) CEO Nazir Alli and the former Department of Transport spokesperson, Tiyani Rikhotso.
Minister Peters dissolved the former Prasa board last week after the board had dismissed the acting CEO, Collins Letsoalo, who was seconded to Prasa from the Department of Transport by the Minister.
Addressing the media in Pretoria on Monday, Minister Peters said as a shareholder, she has the responsibility to ensure that Prasa delivers on its core mandate and that such delivery is underpinned by prudent and good governance principles.
“The decision to second Mr Letsoalo was intended to ensure that we attend to and correct all other issues that drew negative publicity and brought about a sense of insecurity and low staff moral at Prasa.
“As government, we have committed ourselves to deal decisively with fraud and corruption, and will do everything in our power to root out these acts of dishonesty and criminality wherever they emerge,” the Minister said.
“In ensuring that Prasa delivers on its core mandate and that such delivery is underpinned by good governance principles, I expressed my concern over the long and protracted investigation by Werksmans Attorneys.
“My concern was that the investigation seemed endless and without a clear scope and a specific end objective. This situation resulted in excessive spending, which was reported to be in the region of R80 million then and now sitting at approximately R127 million,” the minister said.
The law firm was contracted to conduct a probe into suspect deals identified by the Auditor General at Prasa.
Minister Peters said the decision to dissolve the previous board and the appointment of the interim board will not affect the ongoing investigations into various corruption cases.
The Minister said the interim board members were carefully selected on the basis of skills and expertise required to run a company.
The interim board members are:
- Mr Nazir Ali – chairperson
- Mr Frans Baleni
- Mr Ronny Mkhwanazi
- Mr Tiyani Rikhotso
- Ms Natalie Skeepers
- Ms Constance Maleho (National Department of Transport)
- Mr Xolile George (SALGA)
- National Treasury Representative
– SAnews.gov.za
