Bloated and top-heavy Prasa needs a shake-up, says new board chair

The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) has a bloated management structure and may soon see a shake-up.

This is according to new board chair Leonard Ramatlakane, who was speaking before parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday.

“The structure now, as it stands, is bloated. As we have done our analysis. The structure is top-heavy ... What we need to do is to review the structure so that the structure of Prasa, lean and mean, is able to do the delivery of the work that it needs to do. At the moment it's top-heavy,” said Ramatlakane.

He said the agency's top management was too large and layered.

“We are hoping that by the new financial year we would have done a structural review,” he said.

Ramatlakane said Prasa would also want to ensure that the skills of its employees matched the jobs they did and positions they occupied.

The newly appointed board chair was answering questions directed at him by ANC MP Bheki Hadebe, who had asked about vacancies at Prasa.

Board member Smanga Sethene said Prasa was anticipating a skills audit in the next quarter of this year. He said Prasa was also looking to advertise for a new CFO — which comes after the cabinet last week approved the appointment of Zolani Matthews as the new Prasa CEO.

Hadebe further criticised Prasa and the way it was dealing with unauthorised expenditure. He urged the company to deal with those who had incorrectly approved over-expenditure.

“Who approved over-spending without necessary approval? I don't think that takes years. It does not need the SIU [Special Investigating Unit]. It's internal processes. Payment to suppliers without signed contracts, that does not need SIU, it's internal control measures,” said Hadebe.

He said it was important for Prasa to identify officials involved in such practices to prevent the repeated contravention of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA).

Sethene said they had been advised by the SIU to move slowly in dealing with the cases.

“An investigation has to be carried out to find out whether people have contravened the provisions of the PFMA. An investigation has to be carried out, we can't rush it ... The SIU has asked us to walk slowly when we come to that,” said Sethene.

He said they didn't want to rush the process only for it to backfire.

Scopa chairperson Mkhuleko Hlengwa was unhappy about the remarks about moving slowly on the investigations, questioning whether there were time frames.

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