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Peters denies bid to stifle Prasa probe

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has denied stifling a probe into the R51 billion locomotive tender at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa). This followed a leaked letter that Peters had ordered the Prasa board to close the investigation by a law firm. But on Wednesday the Department of Transport said its boss was not trying to block any probe into the multibillion-rand tender. The DA wants the minister to come to Parliament to account for her her decision to shut down the probe. But the department said there was nothing untoward on Peters’s decision to close down the investigation. It said the investigation had been going on for a long time and expenditure had reached R80 million, which would be deemed irregular expenditure. Prasa has been embroiled in controversies in the past few months since the departure of former chief executive Lucky Montana and other senior officials.

The agency appeared to be caught up in a fight between the board and the senior officials. The portfolio committee on transport last year visited Prasa in Gauteng to look at its modernisation programme. But the fallout over the Montana saga has shown deep-seated problems at the agency. The opposition has been calling on the minister to act tough on Prasa. Peters said yesterday the investigation by the law firm appeared to be taking far longer than the prescribed period. She said, through her department, the prolonged investigation did not have a scope and needed to be closed. She has been calling for the Prasa board to get a full report on the matter and there was no further need to continue with the investigation. The leaked letter, said the department, was not an attempted underhand tactic to get the board to buckle under pressure to stop the investigation. However, it was a reality that the investigation was escalating in cost, now amounting to R80m.

This money needed to be accounted for, otherwise it would be regarded as fruitless expenditure as it was not part of the agency’s budget for the current financial year. But the opposition warned that the fight would continue in order to get the true facts on the investigation and why Peters wanted to shut it down.

Source: www.iol.co.za

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Peters denies bid to stifle Prasa probe

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