Troubled Prasa sacks four executives
Shocked insiders say they are competent and are scapegoats
● Four senior executives at the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) who were axed by the board this week are considering challenging the state-owed entity’s decision to dismiss them.
Prasa Rail CEO Nosipho Damasane, Prasa technical CEO Hishaam Emeran, chief security officer Tebogo Rakau and group company secretary Sandile Dlamini were served with termination letters this week.
The Sunday Times has learnt that the four executives met their lawyers yesterday afternoon for counsel on steps they could take.
The four intend challenging the grounds for their dismissal as they claim there was no probation clause in their contracts. Prasa said the four failed to impress during the supposed probation period.
The decision to remove them was taken at a board meeting on Thursday.
The move is expected to create further instability in the troubled SOE, which is dealing with damaged infrastructure that has brought trains to a halt.
The dismissed executives were said to have been shocked when they were served with the termination letters as they believed they were turning around the ailing commuter network.
Insiders sympathetic to the four said the group had been a target since the appointment of the board and the newly appointed group CEO. “So they were fired [based] on nonperformance, with a process that was never followed properly,” an insider said.
“They came in here in July and brought back the confidence of the country by securing and putting trains when there was no infrastructure ... And now they are fired.”
The Sunday Times understands the board was dissatisfied with their performance and had little hope in their ability to turn around the rail network.
In one of the four termination letters, signed by acting group CEO Thandeka Mabija, which the Sunday Times has seen, the axing was based on alleged poor performance.
It reads: “In assessing the outcomes of your performance, following deliberation, the organisation has concluded that you have not met the performance standards as expected ... during this period you have failed to fulfil the expected performance targets”. The letter goes on to say the contract had come to an effective end on February 18 2021, the day it was signed.
“You are required to return all company assets in your possession,” it adds.
Insiders said the board believed the four were “highly incompetent”.
This, according to those with inside knowledge, could not be further from truth. “Everybody was on Prasa’s case until they came in and put the trains back on the track,” a source said.
The executives are said to be confident that their five-year fixed-term contracts were not subject to a probation clause. They will argue that their axing was unlawful as proper termination of employment processes were not followed.
However, board chair Leonard Ramatlakane disputed the probation clause argument, saying the employment contracts of all employees were subject to a probation period. “In terms of Prasa probation policy, all newly appointed and promoted employees are to serve a period of probation before their positions are confirmed, either for a fixed-term contract or on a permanent basis,” Ramatlakane said.
“The probation policy makes no exception for any employee to be absolved from being subjected to probation.”
He would not be drawn into confirming whether the board believed the four executives were incompetent and would only say that the decision to terminate their employment was “based on performance”.
Another insider said a “clandestine kind of operation” has been taking place since the installation of the new board and acting group CEO.
“They [the four executives] have been targeted for the last three months working under very difficult circumstances, realising that something is coming and it was for all to see that something is coming, and this scapegoat of performance is dropped on the table,” said the insider.
Ramatlakane said: “When you do performance evaluation, you look at holistic functionality of the executive.
“Based on what you have been able to do and what you have not been able to do, and the strengths. You then get your employment confirmed or not confirmed post the probation period.”
Ramatlakane said he wished the executives well on their future endeavours.