Think before you go to court
Main parties are deserting former Prasa boss
FORMER Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) chief executive Lucky Montana’s threat of legal action against the Public Protector may see him walk the gauntlet alone.
This comes after political parties, including the ANC, unanimously recommended that action be taken against him on findings of maladministration, cronyism, corruption and financial mismanagement.
ANC spokesperson Zizi Kodwa, in a statement yesterday, said that the party called on the board of Prasa, and the Minister of Transport, Dipuo Peters, to urgently consider the report issued and put in place a process to ascertain the veracity of these allegations. “No stone must be left unturned in the quest to get to the bottom of this matter,” he said.
“As South Africans, we must be totally intolerant to such deviant behaviours and those found guilty of such transgressions must be brought to book,” Kodwa said.
The DA, the main opposition party, said it would take legal action to make sure (Public Protector Thuli) Madonsela’s remedial action was implemented.
Montana said yesterday that he would bring the matter before the courts in part on principle as executives in his position would now be reluctant to take unpopular decisions in fear of their being labelled. “The Public Protector is not a judge. I am gonna take this matter to a court of law and ask the court to review it and set it aside, that’s my main objective,” he said.
Montana justified the dropping of charges against executives, who had been suspended for prolonged periods, saying they were individual cases and that as chief executive he had considered the expense and time court processes would take.
In her report, Madonsela found that Montana was liable for at least six issues of maladminis- tration, corruption and fruitless and wasteful expenditure.
In reaction to the threat of court action, Madonsela yesterday said that Montana should carefully consider her report before taking the matter to court.
In a 385-page report titled Derailed, Madonsela said that the transactions investigated and related findings revealed a culture of systematic failure to comply with the organisation’s supply chain management policy, particularly involving the failure to plan for bulk procurement, or test the market appropriately for competitive pricing and to manage contracts, which may have cost Prasa millions in avoidable expenditure and preventable disruption of services.
“I will take each one of those findings on review. They are factually incorrect. There was no evidence to back up the findings that the Public Protector has made. Even the people who brought complaints had no evidence to back them up,” Montana said.