The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) wants to return the Afro 4000 trains which are unsuitable for local conditions, and get a refund for the R2.65 billion it has already paid for the order.<\/p>\n
The Sunday Times reported that<\/strong><\/a> Prasa launched court action to \u201crecover from one of South Africa\u2019s biggest ever tender debacles involving billions of rands\u201d.<\/p>\n In July the Afro 4000 trains made headlines after Rapport revealed that the\u00a0locomotives were unsuitable for South African infrastructure<\/a><\/strong>, as the height of the trains is 4.264m, whereas the national limit was 3.965m.<\/p>\n The problems with the Afro 4000 trains continued<\/strong><\/a> after one of the locomotives derailed. Prasa officials struggled to establish what went wrong, because the trains only \u2018communicated\u2019 in Spanish.<\/p>\n Former Prasa CEO Lucky Montana downplayed the concerns<\/strong><\/a>, and tried to convince South Africans that the trains are indeed suitable for the local railway network.<\/p>\n Since then Montana and former Prasa\u2019s head of engineering services Daniel Mthimkhulu were fired, and the Hawks have launched a criminal investigation into Mtimkhulu and Montana for corruption.<\/p>\n It also emerged that Mthimkhulu<\/strong><\/a> was not a registered engineer, and that the Engineering Council of South Africa (Ecsa) rejected Mtimkhulu\u2019s application to register with it in 2006.<\/p>\n The full report is available in the Sunday Times of 29 November 2015.<\/em><\/p>\n Prasa\u2019s culture of hiding information: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Prasa Afro4000 locomotive derails<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n Public Protector\u2019s \u201cexplosive\u201d report on Prasa<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\nMore on Prasa<\/h3>\n