Train arsonists paralyse Cape Town
Arsonists leave trail of havoc but no-one has a clue who they are
● Cape Town’s ageing passenger train fleet desperately needs an upgrade, but new coaches will not hit the rails until arsonists laying siege to Metrorail are arrested, says transport MEC Donald Grant.
For hundreds of thousands of commuters whose daily journeys have been disrupted by the shortage of rolling stock, the problem is that Grant, the police, Metrorail and the City of Cape Town have no clue who the arsonists are, or how to catch them.
Metrorail’s damage bill has topped R300m since the arson attacks began in 2015, and the network has shed an estimated 250,000 commuters since 1997 when it transported 740,000 people daily.
Transport Minister Blade Nzimande and Cape Town’s mayoral committee member for transport, Brett Herron, blamed a lack of crime intelligence.
“There hasn’t been enough arrests, prosecutions and convictions,” he said. “Detectives are saying they work with the information they get and that there needs to be better forensic information. They need crime intelligence to help them identify who is behind this and what could be the motive.”
JP Smith, the mayoral committee member for safety and security, said there was a campaign aimed at sabotaging public transport.
“There’s no doubt that this is the case, whether it’s by disgruntled employees, or by the taxi industry, or any other options, as is variously alleged,” said Smith. “That it is organised and sustained is definite.”
Grant recently visited Gibela, the consortium building 600 new trains over the next decade in Nigel, Gauteng. “There are new trains that are coming out of the production line but we cannot bring those trains here until there are facilities to service them and also to be sure that they are not going to be affected,” he said.
Nzimande, who visited the Cape Town depot where burnt coaches are piling up, questioned the efficiency of crime intelligence. He said the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) spent big on security “but it looks to me we are not getting value for money”.
He added: “We are concerned also about the capacity of our intelligence. The police have assured me that they have put more effort into that but the criminal justice system as a whole is not adequately sensitised to this because people are arrested but they get acquitted.”
Western Cape police commissioner Lieutenant-General Khombinkosi Jula said the investigations were “very intensive”. However, there was no “conclusive evidence”.
Major-General Jeremy Vearey, the provincial deputy commissioner for crime detection, said at most stations where trains were burnt cameras had not been working since 2015. Metrorail regional manager Richard Walker said the attacks occurred when trains were relatively empty. Carriages were usually set alight just before they reached stations. He said not all stations had cameras. Vandalism to railway and infrastructure, and cable theft, added to the network’s woes, he said. Metrorail has hired more armed guards and is using armoured vehicles to patrol vulnerable areas and deploying drones for surveillance.
“Since these measures were implemented scores of arrests have followed and 105 offenders are awaiting trial. We also continue to target vulnerable assets. Communities have begun to respond positively with intelligence, and many tip-offs have contributed to arrests,” said Walker.
“The region has 50 train sets currently; we used to operate 84. We are operating at reduced capacity so our revenue generation is significantly reduced.”
The United National Transport Union, which represents most Metrorail staff, has called on Police Minister Bheki Cele to appoint a task team “with the best of the country’s expertise to investigate who is behind the ongoing arson attacks”.
But general secretary Steve Harris said so far the plea had fallen on deaf ears, despite the fact that hundreds of thousands of workers “have no other alternative but to rely on trains to get them to and from work”.
Janine Myburgh, president of the Cape Chamber of Commerce & Industry, said the failing commuter rail system had become a major threat to the local economy, and 86% of chamber members were worried that the situation threatened the sustainability of their businesses.
“Who can possibly gain from this destruction? We need criminal intelligence so that we can go after the organisers and chop off the head of this monster,” said Myburgh.
“Conditions on Metrorail trains have become a nightmare and employers tell of staff arriving at work in tears and leaving for home with fear in their eyes.”
A force of 100 “rail enforcement officers” is being recruited to protect commuters and infrastructure. The unit, which will cost about R48m annually, will be funded by the city council, the provincial government and Prasa, and will be on duty from the end of September.