Passenger Rail Shosholoza Meyl trouble

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Passenger Rail Shosholoza Meyl trouble

October 22, 2010

The Shosholoza Meyl owners namely The Passenger Rail Authority (Prasa) and Transnetand Transnet apparently settled there differences.

Shosholoza Meyl is a long-distance passenger train service and reports from Transnet is that it will soon be back on track following a meeting between top executives at the two parastatals, Transnet and Prasa.

Furthermore the Public Enterprises Minister Barbara Hogan and the Transport Minister Sibusiso Ndebele met with the head of Prasa, Lucky Montana, and the acting chief executive of Transnet, Chris Wells on this matter.

It was revealed that Prasa and Transnet are working on a plan to ensure that Shosholoza Meyl is back on track as soon as possible.

Transnet used to own the long-distance rail service but passed it to Prasa last year with each company only interested in their own business interests and neglected the vital rail service.

Transnet is supposed to maintain Prasa's trains and locomotives but the service became inefficient and expensive.

Transnet says the quality of its work is acceptable and the real issue is that Prasa owes it money.

The two state-owned enterprises were at loggerheads over the R1.3 billion debt and maintenance of locomotives.

Prasa suspended its entire long distance passenger train service on August 13, 2010, claiming that Transnet Rail Engineering (TRE), Transnet's division, had refused to perform maintenance work on its locomotives.

Transnet insist that Prasa owed it R1.3 billion, saying this debt is "due and payable".