South African law firm, Webber Wentzel, has been appointed to investigate allegations of corruption at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA).
This according to Transport Minister Barbara Creecy who made the announcement during a media briefing on Monday.
The allegations stem from media reports that a whistleblower had compiled a report detailing alleged corruption related to two tenders amounting to some R18 billion.
“These will be investigations which will include both the relevant officials named by the whistleblower as well as board members.
“We will look at all aspects: alleged procurement irregularities, alleged fraudulent payments. We will review compliance with bond security requirements, allegations of non-payment of 16 companies and also allegations of awarding unlawful contracts.
“The investigation will also assess compliance with the legal and regulatory frameworks in relation to the awarding of these contracts,” she said.
Creecy added that given the seriousness of the allegations, a preliminary report is expected to be produced within 30 days, “if not sooner”.
“[On Sunday] following a conversation with the chairperson of the PRASA board, I agreed that given that there are allegations against the board, I will receive the preliminary report and on the basis of the findings advise on what further action needs to be taken.
“It is important that this investigation takes place speedily so that if necessary, we can take appropriate remedial action and we can put this episode behind us,” the Minister said.
Furthermore, the Auditor General (AG) will conduct real-time audits of all large procurement processes at the entity.
“Real-time audits are a mechanism that the [AG] can implement during or immediately after a procurement process to prevent and detect weaknesses in controls and to report on these findings in a very short space of time.
“It is the intention going forward that PRASA will adopt this system to enable the accounting officer to take corrective measures to protect resources and prevent fraud or wastage and ensure that programmes rolled out, as designed, benefit…our passengers,” Creecy said.
The Minister added that the seventh administration has singled out the recovery of the rail passenger system as an important objective.
“It is important that the board, management and workers of PRASA continue to focus on the recovery of priority lines, the rehabilitation of stations and the renewal of signalling so that we can increase train slots and thereby ensure that our passengers get to work and to school cheaply, safely and on time.
“Over the past two and a half years, important work has been done by PRASA to restore train services on 31 out of 40 priority lines to rehabilitate hundreds of stations vandalised during the COVID-19 pandemic. We must continue this work so that PRASA’s passengers can get the rail system they deserve,” Creecy said. – SAnews.gov.za
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Metal Star
The Man who could only Drink Milk
I know an old man who had lived a life full of adventure, but his health started to catch up with him. He\’d run the Boston Marathon, was an avid surfer, and climbed Everest, but he\’d started to have abdominal pains around his 85th birthday and went to see a doctor. Sadly, he ultimately was diagnosed with a rare degenerative liver disease that slowly made him allergic to everything he ate.
He kept copious notes, and as an avid gastronomist slowly grew to despair as everything he\’d spent his life enjoying became something he could no longer eat. Alcohol went first, then mushrooms, then bread, then root vegetables, then coffee, one at a time he had to remove them from his diet. The doctor was clear: if he kept eating something his liver rejected the autoimmune response would be quick and severe, and would lead to a painful death. Little by little, everything was taken away as an option, until the only thing that remained was milk.
In some ways, this actually made life easier, because the mental strain of remembering what he could and couldn\’t eat was gone, but then so was the joy in variety. But he took it in stride, and got his own cow and took classes from a farmer to learn everything he could about the only thing that could give him sustenance. And even within milk, he could still have yogurt, butter, cream, some cheeses, and other milk-derived products he hadn\’t fully rejected yet, so it wasn\’t all bad. But then one day a few months later he felt the pain again, and he knew cow\’s milk was no longer an option.
Lacking other options, he tried goat\’s milk, and he was delighted that it worked! The protein structure is just different enough that his body still tolerated it. That bought him another month. And that\’s when we came up with a wonderful plan to go on one last grand adventure around the world. If he could get one month of life out of the milk of every mammal, he\’d actually have a few more years to enjoy life to the fullest and see the world in all its beauty. Each month, we\’d pick a place with a new mammal, and he would immerse himself fully with the locals, learn all the ways to prepare the milk, and just enjoy the hand he had been dealt as much as he could.
We milked sheep in New Zealand. Camels in Egypt. Zebras in South Africa. Giant bats in Indonesia. Do you know how many Peruvian cuy you need to milk to get a single glass? I do. Even as his health slowly faded, he stayed cheerful, and I felt lucky to join him on the adventure of a lifetime. That brings us to today when he got to the very end of his spreadsheet, and declared that he was now allergic to every mammal. He\’d enjoyed his journey, but his time had come to an end, for there was nothing left to milk.
To which I said nonsense, I bet we can milk a few thousand karma out of this post.
Grave Scuttlebutt
Sudan: You have two cows. The southern one ran away because it contains more beef.