Mbalula said that Prasa has started the process of physically verifying all its employees under Project Ziveze, adding that since the freezing of salaries to employees who did not actually work at the company, more employees have come forward to be verified.
He added that a forensic investigation is currently underway on how the ‘ghost’ employees found their way onto Prasa’s payroll.
“ONCE THE INVESTIGATION IS CONCLUDED, ACTION WILL BE TAKEN AGAINST THOSE WHO ARE IMPLICATED.”
Earlier this year the Standing Committee on Public Accounts conducted a hearing on the annual report of Prasa for the 2020/21 financial year and investigated irregular, fruitless, and wasteful expenditure.
The Committee raised several questions over the rail agency’s action plan to deal with its repeated findings of few concrete plans to improve the sector and the fact that full salaries were being paid during 2020/21 when no work was being done.
Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula said that the process of service recovery had been painstakingly slow because of the state of the infrastructure.
