Prasa’s treatment is out of line

ON WEDNESDAY September 13, I leave home in a rush.

Through this I make an honest mistake by grabbing my child’s monthly train ticket (Fish Hoek – Ottery) instead of my own (Fish Hoek – Cape Town).

Acknowledging my fault, I declare my situation to the first marshal I see on the train and am told: “Buy the correct ticket at your destination”.

I get to Newlands station and head for the ticket office to explain the situation. While speaking to one official I am suddenly grabbed by Prasa marshals telling me: “This is fraud and you won’t leave the station unless you pay a fine of R40”.

I ask to speak to the station manager. She arrives, but before listening to me she too goes off her head, together with the rest of the staff.

She tells me: “You deliberately purchase such tickets; you will have to pay a fine of R120 or you will get locked up”.

They then try and force me into their holding room but I refuse. In our struggle, I confirm that I will pay the R40 fine as long as they leave me alone.

All of a sudden everyone around me quiets down, with one saying: “Okay, come, come and pay here!”

In all my personal experience I can say that I have never come across such a thing and that I despise people who have no sense of humanity.

These people have been placed in positions without proper skills or training to do the job, and in their own mind they feel they can do the job the way that suites them best.

My questions now to all Prasa staff and commuters are:

Where/how are these prices (fines) distinguished?

Why do we not see Prasa staff having visible name tags?

It will take much to convince many that we are not dealing with a corrupt system.

Personally, I feel that so much has gone wrong in top management that Prasa staff too have been given the platform to crook the normal law-abiding citizen.

While waiting on the next train, I sit and watch the few who just had a hold of me, thinking to myself how utterly disgusted I am with what we as commuters have to support just to keep our heads above water, month in and month out, but yet we get failed daily.