{"id":12803,"date":"2020-10-02T03:45:35","date_gmt":"2020-10-02T03:45:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/?post_type=stories&p=12803"},"modified":"2024-09-20T11:36:11","modified_gmt":"2024-09-20T11:36:11","slug":"201002-prasa-pays-r3m-to-mbakss-administrator-just-before-court-culls-him","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/further.co.za\/amabwp\/201002-prasa-pays-r3m-to-mbakss-administrator-just-before-court-culls-him\/","title":{"rendered":"Prasa pays R3m to Mbaks’s administrator \u2014 just before court culls him"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The day before the high court set aside Bongisizwe Mpondo’s secondment as the administrator of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa), he was hastily made a permanent employee and back-paid R3.17-million.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The amount, which is apparent from leaked payroll records and paystubs, was his salary plus an “acting allowance” for the nine months since Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula had sent him to Prasa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AmaBhungane has been told the rail agency has launched a witch-hunt to find the source of the leak.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mpondo was added to Prasa’s payroll system on August 24, the day before the Cape Town high court judgment, with a monthly salary of R454 212 \u2014<\/span> plus a monthly allowance of R196 508 for his role as Prasa’s acting accounting authority.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Together, this makes for a whopping R650 720 a month. The R3.17-million he got as back-pay that day was after tax and deductions.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Prasa should never have paid Mpondo at all, given the court ruling the next day that Mbalula had appointed him unlawfully \u2014<\/span> something the rail agency\u2019s two group legal executives had warned about as early as January 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Civil society coalition #UniteBehind, which launched the court challenge to Mpondo\u2019s appointment, raised red flags even earlier, writing to Mbalula on 10 December last year asking him to explain the legality of the move.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

[sidebarContentSingleImage target=modal url=https:\/\/amabhungane.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Graphic-Mpondo-Payslips-for-publication-1024×1024-1.png]Bongisizwe Mpondo payslips.[\/sidebarContentSingleImage]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Neither Mbalula nor the department of transport would answer questions about who authorized Mpondo\u2019s payment or whether the minister or the department would now refund Prasa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#UniteBehind told amaBhungane, \u201cThe department should cover Prasa\u2019s costs of Mr Mpondo, given that the high court has held that his appointment and purported secondment was unlawful and invalid.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mpondo\u2019s generous package is particularly galling because for the last two years there has been a salary freeze for all other Prasa employees \u2013 and because of Mpondo\u2019s failure to restore security services cancelled by the interim board last year, leading to extensive vandalism and theft.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prasa referred amaBhungane\u2019s questions to the department. Mpondo said he had sacrificed to leave his transport consulting business and “respond to the call to serve my country”. He worked “month on month without earning a salary during a time when the Covid-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc in the economy”.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The department’s director-general, Alec Moemi, said Prasa had paid Mpondo a lump sum for the previous nine months because of \u201cprolonged negotiations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cMr Mpondo\u2019s situation was unprecedented,\u201d Moemi said. \u201cWhere secondment happens between a department and an entity, it is not so straight forward as the salary bands on the Persal system and those of [state owned] entities are way apart from each other.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIn any secondment arrangements, the parties do make some form of payment arrangements. The Minister did send a letter of appointment of Mr Mpondo as Prasa\u2019s acting group chief executive to the acting company secretary, Ms Mapule Thabethe. This letter in turn allowed Prasa to be able to appoint him on their own systems.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But Moemi is ignoring Judge Nathan Erasmus\u2019s ruling<\/a> that Mpondo was initially contracted as a special advisor to the minister, a role that precluded him from being seconded elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Erasmus also ruled that an attempt to have him resign and immediately sign a new contract with Mbalula as a \u201cproject manager\u201d did not allow for his lawful secondment as acting chief executive of Prasa either.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although the purported appointment was made by the minister, the department expected Prasa to pay Mpondo\u2019s salary \u2014<\/span> but this did not happen for nine months, perhaps because of the mysterious \u201cprolonged negotiations\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Suddenly an administrator<\/h5>\n\n\n\n

Mbalula, who took charge of the transport department in May 2019, stated several times that he planned to fast track the appointment of a permanent Prasa board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As Erasmus set out in his judgement<\/span>, Mbalula made several promises that he was on the point of finalising the appointment of a new board to succeed the interim board.   <\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

But on 15 November, Mbalula appointed Mpondo as a special adviser to his office. One week later, in a letter to Finance Minister Tito Mboweni and President Cyril Ramaphosa, Mbalula explained his intention to dissolve the current interim board and either fast-track the permanent board appointments or place Prasa under administration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI’m leaning more on option two considering the situation of the entity and wish to consult with yourself on invoking the provisions of section 49(3) of the PFMA in me appointing an administrator, which should be a turnaround expert to assist in addressing the operational deficiencies of the entity,\u201d Mbalula wrote.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

Former Prasa administrator Bongisizwe Mpondo during a press briefing on 2 September 2020.[\/sidebarContentSingleImage]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two weeks later, on 5 December, Mpondo\u2019s position as special adviser was terminated and Mbalula offered him a contract as a project manager in the department, to be seconded as the acting group chief executive for Prasa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On the same day Mbalula dissolved the interim board and later purported to appoint Mpondo as \u201cadministrator\u201d with the power to direct Prasa without a board of control.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The judge would later find Mpondo was \u201cnot an existing employee capable of secondment\u201d and that the laws governing Prasa did not allow for it to operate without a board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Almost immediately after Mpondo’s secondment, both #UniteBehind and Prasa\u2019s internal legal team questioned the legality of appointing an administrator at the rail agency.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite these warnings, Mpondo was tasked by the minister to get what Mpondo called \u201ca broken business\u201d back on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mpondo\u2019s work included <\/span>expediting the agency’s modernisation programme, implementing security, developing capacity to manage Prasa\u2019s capital programme and competitive procurement, \u201censure effective consequence manage content\u201d, and review Prasa\u2019s business model.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But instead, he and Mbalula appear to have destabilised the rail agency still further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mpondo appointed a six-person task team<\/span><\/a>, replacing some newly appointed permanent staff, such as the chief financial officer. He would also try to remove Prasa\u2019s chief procurement officer, and over the next nine months would make new chief executive appointments to subsidiaries Prasa Rail, Prasa Tech and Autopax, as well as appoint Prasa\u2019s chief information officer and company secretary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now the department has conceded that Mpondo\u2019s appointments may be overturned.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe newly appointed accounting authority or the new board of control, as the case may be, will make such decision\u2019s as he\/it may be advised to lawfully take with regard to appointments and decisions made by Mr Mpondo,\u201d Moemi told amaBhungane.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Meanwhile Mpondo compounded the security vacuum opened by the interim board when he cancelled most of the irregular though necessary security contracts in April this year in favour of a deal with the South African Police Service.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The police were supposed to help guard the railway network as per a 2019 memorandum of agreement<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite this partnership, railway lines and trains remained vulnerable to vandalism and theft as the police were seemingly focused on arresting petty offenders during the Covid-19 lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Read What\u2019s left of Prasa\u2019s rail infrastructure?<\/em> below.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prasa had been expected to announce its own security plan earlier this year, but this was delayed until 16 September where Prasa expanded on its plan to insource its security using 3 100 new protection officers. By this time, the damage to the railway network had derailed the network modernisation programme, with only South Africa\u2019s mainline routes remaining operational.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The rail agency had an unspent capital budget to modernise infrastructure, but this has since been redirected to pay off Eskom and municipality debts. In a March media briefing<\/span><\/a>, Mpondo reportedly explained that Prasa\u2019s liabilities amounted to R9.7-billion in part because of payment arrears to Eskom and municipalities.<\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"\/<\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n

16 September 2020, Prasa security launch raid on illegal scrap dealer (photo: Gemma Ritchie).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to a source close to the matter, Prasa managed to convert R1.8-billion of its capital expenditure budget into operational expenditure with R1.4-billion earmarked for spending on the rail business and R400-million for spending on managing Covid-19.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

According to the 2019 budget review<\/span><\/a><\/span>,<\/span> the treasury allocated Prasa R41.5-billion in capital transfers for the three-year medium term to buy new coaches, refurbish old ones and upgrade other infrastructure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Following Judge Erasmus\u2019s ruling, the treasury appointed Airports Company South Africa group executive Badisa Matshego as the accounting authority for Prasa.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Matshego told media during the 16 September launch of Prasa\u2019s new integrated security plan that the rail agency had sustained R4-billion in damage to infrastructure in recent years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The theft and vandalism of core infrastructure had caused a \u201cvery serious reduction in capacity to provide the requisite service in rail transport for commuters, causing major disruptions, sales and drastically diminishing the ability of plants to generate revenue,\u201d Matshego said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

#UniteBehind and experts from the treasury have all said that Prasa needed stability with a permanent board to implement modernisation and refurbishment programmes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mpondo<\/a><\/span> told amaBhungane: “I took the sacrifice to leave my business and respond to the call to serve my country. This has come at great opportunity cost to me for the almost nine months I was away from my business. (I have been running my transportation consulting business for 14 years now).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I dedicated my time fully to the Prasa task wherein earning a salary was not foremost on my mind. I sought to bring stability and order to Prasa whilst ensuring that trains are running.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

AmaBhungane is a non-profit newsroom that exposes wrongdoing. But we cannot do it without you. Support<\/a> independent journalism.<\/i><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

“I therefore worked month on month without earning a salary during a time when the Covid-19 pandemic was wreaking havoc in the economy. I must indicate that whilst this has been very difficult for me personally, I am however proud of the effort I put in to bring PRASA back on track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“There have been notable positive changes in the organisation against some determined headwinds from within and outside of Prasa. Lastly, there are very competent skills that I have recruited which should continue to build on the solid foundation that I sought to put in place.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s left of Prasa\u2019s rail infrastructure?<\/h4>\n\n\n\n

Over months of lockdown with little or no security at depots and train stations because of contract cancellation, is there anything left at Prasa to fix?<\/i><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa<\/span> (Prasa) was in a crisis long before the national lockdown in March this year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vandalism and arson had cost Prasa almost a billion rand in damaged infrastructure between 2017 and 2019 \u2013 during a time when Prasa had contracted out its security services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Even when there was security, there was still vandalism,” Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula told journalists at a press briefing  <\/span>last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But this rationalisation cannot hide the wanton destruction the termination of security services by Prasa in April 2020 facilitated during the lockdown.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now overhead cables hang loose or abandoned in the veld, temporary houses cluster the railway line in Langa, Cape Town, and desperate people have pilfered the bricks from depots and train stations left unsecured.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

*Click on the train icons in the map below to see some of the damage perpetrated before and during the lockdown.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n