Anyone can see SA’s rail infrastructure is in a shambolic state and that policing or security of such an important component of the country’s economy is non-existent.
Drive near any railway line that used to carry passenger trains in the major cities and the destruction is apparent. Newspapers and websites have carried extensive stories and pictures of the devastation.
Overhead lines used to deliver power to locomotives are stolen. Stations are vandalised and robbed of metal and anything useful, leaving them ruined shells.
How the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) intends restarting any kind of service on this destroyed infrastructure is beyond imagination.
But the theft and vandalism isn’t just limited to the passenger rail network, which by definition is close to human habitation.
Chrome companies and coal traders are pulling their hair out over the lack of availability of trains to get their minerals to the coast and delivered to their offshore customers.
Transnet Freight Rail (TFR) blames theft and vandalism of its network, with copper the main target.
There were more than 5,000 such incidents in 2020.
The problem, according to TFR, is worsening.
Overlay this with the desperate pleas from SA’s mining industry for improved infrastructure, be it rail or ports. With better access to rail, which is far cheaper than trucking, and efficient harbours, the minerals sector can create jobs and revenue for all the country’s citizens.
The question begs to be asked: who benefits from the wanton destruction of the rail network and why is policing of such economic sabotage so lax?
The questions are too important to be left unanswered, yet this problem has been escalating for years with no signs of inroads by the police, crime intelligence networks or the rail utilities. When do the alarm bells go off for this crisis to get the attention it deserves?
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