No Agreement Reached Between Prasa and Transnet Talks

17 August 2010

While the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) continues to normalise its long distance train services operated by Shosholoza Meyl as well as provide bus services in areas where trains are still not running, no agreement has been reached with Transnet in resolving the current impasse which consists of the following critical issues:

• Access to Transnet’s rail network for our long-distance passenger trains and delays of almost 12 hours at a time. PRASA pays an annual fee of R300 million for access to the Transnet network as well as en-route support services.
• Unreliability and poor quality service on coaches repaired or refurbished by Transnet with instances of water ingress after the train has been serviced by Transnet.
• Transnet’s failure over the past 6 months to provide PRASA with documentation supporting alleged amounts owed by PRASA.

As a way forward, PRASA has presented the following four key areas in a bid to resolve the deadlock:

1. An independent arbitrator to investigate the disputed monies allegedly owed by PRASA.
2. The introduction of Service Level Agreements between PRASA and Transnet Rail Engineering (TRE) and Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) with clear penalties to ensure that PRASA is protected from similar predicaments in the future.
3. PRASA will set clear standards on the maintenance of all its locomotives by Transnet moving forward.

PRASA has already started to run the Johannesburg to Durban trains while the Johannesburg to Cape Town trains will commence running on Thursday this week. The rest of the routes are being supported by Autopax busses which is the long distance road service subsidiary of PRASA.

PRASA would like to extend its apologies to its customers for the inconvenience caused as a result of the disruption in services. Shosholoza Meyl customers are invited to contact the customer care line on 086 000 8888 for assistance on the latest train schedules.