{"id":839394,"date":"2025-10-08T13:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-10-08T11:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=839394"},"modified":"2025-10-08T12:45:42","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T10:45:42","slug":"the-state-owned-company-in-south-africa-thats-seen-a-670-improvement-in-5-years","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/business\/839394\/the-state-owned-company-in-south-africa-thats-seen-a-670-improvement-in-5-years\/","title":{"rendered":"The state-owned company in South Africa that’s seen a 670% improvement in 5 years"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) has shown an improved performance in customer trip numbers after being decimated five years ago. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

PRASA operates the nation’s metrorail train network. Despite being significantly cheaper, PRASA\u2019s passenger numbers nosedived at the start of the decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a massive reduction in passenger numbers, which was made worse by governance failures, heightened security risks and increased vandalism. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Many passengers chose more expensive but reliable operations from taxis and buses.  However, the turnaround of the state-owned company is starting to bear fruit, <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In its 2024\/25 financial year report, PRASA noted that it successfully completed 77 million passenger trips, nearly doubling from the 39 million in 2023\/24. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The total represented an overachievement of about 17 million trips against the agency\u2019s target. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since 2020\/21, passenger trip numbers increased by 666%, even if this comes with the caveat that the numbers at the start of the decade marked a serious decline from the prior decade. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The monthly passenger trips average for the 2024\/25 financial year was 6.39 million, with Gauteng recording the largest number of trips, followed by the Western Cape and KZN. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Moreover, passenger trips showed a general upward trend month on month during the year, rising from 4.48 million in April 2024 to 7.65 million in March 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe did not just deliver on our promises \u2013 we exceeded them, restoring passenger confidence while building the foundation for a modern, reliable railway system that our commuters deserve,\u201d said CEO Hishaam Emeran.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe expect the growth in passenger trips to grow across the PRASA network.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the over 200 thousand scheduled trips, PRASA saw a 91% on-time performance, with cancellations at just 3%. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The company has also returned 35 of PRASA\u2019s 40 service lines to operation, with 70% now fully operational. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Source: PRASA<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n

Financials <\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Although there has been a massive rise in customer numbers, there are still concerns across PRASA\u2019s financials. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Although there was strong passenger volume growth, Metrorail revenue of R396.6 million fell short of targets<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was due to ticketing system gaps, delay-related refunds increased season ticket adoption, and deferred fare adjustments.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emeran noted that the group are implementing targeted interventions, such as stabilising ticketing systems, refining customer policies, and proceeding with planned fare adjustments. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

He said these interventions will ensure patronage growth translates into sustainable revenue streams. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Despite specific improvements in the group, its surplus for the year decreased from R10.5 billion to R3.1 billion amid heightened capital expenditure and a decrease in the government subsidy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Emeran said that capital investment was central to the recovery strategy, having deployed R21.1 billion against an allocation of R11.6 billion. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The CEO said that the increased expenditure highlighted the urgent priority of fleet renewal, infrastructure recovery, and system modernisation. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The increased expenditure created 84,718 jobs through R21.1 billion capital spending. Of the direct jobs<\/p>\n\n\n\n

PRASA received an unqualified audit opinion from the Auditor-General, which is notable for a South African state-owned company, as many do not receive clean audits. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are closing remaining audit findings, strengthening supply chain controls, and fully embedding consequence management systems to ensure sustainable governance standards that stand the test of time,\u201d said Emeran. <\/p>\n\n\n

\n
\"\"<\/a>
Source: PRASA<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n
\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PRASA has seen its trip numbers rise significantly, almost doubling over the last financial year alone. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":839398,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9872],"tags":[19272,7941,5695],"class_list":["post-839394","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-auditor-general-2","tag-metrorail","tag-prasa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839394","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=839394"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":839406,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/839394\/revisions\/839406"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/839398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=839394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=839394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=839394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}