Report shows Prasa’s financial collapse amid a litany of poor governance
An auditor-general report shows the Passenger Rail Agency of SA accumulated debt of R4.4bn by the end of March 2017; the DA plans to lay criminal charges
The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) was on the verge of financial collapse at the end of the last financial year when it made a previously undisclosed loss of R1.7bn. The accumulated loss at the end of March 2017 was R4.4bn. This has emerged from a leaked report of the auditor-general related to the 2016-17 financial statements, details of which were disclosed by DA transport spokesperson Manny de Freitas and police spokesperson Zakhele Mbhele at a media briefing on Tuesday. Prasa has still not tabled its annual report for the 2016-17 financial year, even though it was required to do so by end-September 2017 in terms of the Public Finance Management Act (PFMA). It is now about 318 days overdue. The agency has been wracked by allegations of corruption related to the procurement of rolling stock. According to the auditor-general, Prasa did not have an adequate system for identifying and disclosing all irregular, fruitless and wasteful expenditure, and he noted that there was a lac...
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