Several disastrous contracts and the employment of over a thousand “ghost employees” at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) are being investigated by the Special Investigating Unit (SIU).
In 2019, the SIU began investigating the embattled rail agency for fraud and corruption.
President Cyril Ramaphosa has empowered the agency to widen its investigation to include the Swifambo and Siyangena contracts, salaries paid to fake employees, and the payment of fraudulent liability claims by Prasa’s insurance department.
In 2022, Ramaphosa received a final report examining the Swifambo and Siyangena’s commuter rail agency from the Judicial Commission of Inquiry into State Capture.
Over a thousand Prasa employees could not be verified in August of 2022, according to then-transport minister Fikile Mbalula. The salaries of these ghost employees were frozen.
A preliminary investigation by the rail agency later revealed that approximately 1 500 employees were being paid salary but did not exist.
Cosatu, the labour federation whose members have historically relied largely on passenger trains, welcomed the Prasa probe as well as a new Home Affairs investigation.
However, it was “amazed” that the SIU’s inquiry had taken so long to broaden.
“It is vital that the SIU engage the National Prosecuting Authority to ensure that it is prepared to prosecute anyone implicated.
“We cannot afford to continue producing dossiers on who stole what while failing to see the guilty tried, convicted, and sentenced,” it stated.