R1bn gates still don’t work

TWO CRIMINAL CASES PENDING AGAINST THEN CEO LUCKY MONTANA

After the gruelling ordeal of commuting to Cape Town on dangerously overcrowded Metrorail carriages because of a severe shortage of train sets, passengers squeeze through only two or three manned access gates to enter Cape Town station.

This is despite 54 high-tech automated access gates having been installed eight years ago. The gates have never been integrated in the automated fare collection system for which they were designed. Only a few can be open at any time as they have to be manned by ticket-checking staff.

Metrorail Western Cape spokesperson Riana Scott said the Cape Town station “speed gates” were mechanically operated “as and when required”.

The peculiarity of the nonfunctioning access gates appears to link to a tender awarded to Siyangena Technologies in 2009, which is dealt with in the public protector’s Derailed report of 2015.

The public protector, who at the time was Thuli Madonsela, noted that in 2009, Prasa advertised a tender for the installation of high-speed access gates at Doornfontein and Nasrec stations.

Siyangena put in a bid of R1.1 billion and got the job, despite its competitor, Protea Coin, having come in at just under R700 million. According to the public protector, Siyangena’s contract was then improperly extended to seven other stations, including Cape Town, where their high-speed access gates still do not work.

As the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) has not responded to questions, it is not known whether the problems with the gates are due to Prasa or Siyangena.

The contract extension for the installation of high-speed access gates at seven stations resulted in Siyangena raking in an extra R800 million above the R1.1 billion