Cape Town - The chairperson of Parliament’s public accounts watchdog body has raised his concerns about the apparent mushrooming of shacks on the railway line near one of the parliamentary villages.
Addressing Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula at the meeting of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Tuesday, Mkhuleko Hlengwa said he had counted eight shacks near Acacia Park, and not so long ago there had been just one.
Hlengwa explained that there was a railway line that ran parallel to the parliamentary village.
“On my last count there were eight structures that have been erected along the line of that railway line. They started with one,” he said.
“I will not be surprised, if history is anything to go by, unless an intervention is made, if those structures spill over onto the railway track and cause a problem that we currently experience,” Hlengwa said.
The chairperson kept pointing “right outside here”, and saying MPs residing at the Acacia Park parliamentary village would know about the shacks.
“It goes to this thing of turning a blind eye when these things start out and then acting surprised with shock when they mushroom into catastrophe in the manner they have been for Prasa.”
Hlengwa also said Prasa has to bear the responsibility as the things happened on their watch and there was a heightened level of laissez faire attitude to deal with them for a host of reasons.
He said preventive measures need to be taken to nip the mushrooming of the shacks on railway lines in the bud.
“Here is a classical example on the Acacia railway line as we speak right now.
“I am sure when I leave there will be another count, probably more than it was two weeks ago,” he said.
Hlengwa made his remarks following the committee’s oversight visits to Prasa in the Western Cape and Gauteng in January and March.
He said they were worried about the state of affairs of Prasa, in particular around the infrastructure which bore the brutal brunt of vandalism and neglect.
“The situation in the Western Cape - shocking is an understatement to see the kind of invasion which has taken place on rail tracks and adverse effects on access of train services for communities such as Khayelitsha and the cost factor on operations to move 1 000 odd ‘households’ at Langa and in Philippi 10 000. (It’s) an indication of a railway system under siege.
“We are as the committee very worried and hope the turnaround strategy will yield results,” Hlengwa said.
Mbalula, who was mum on the shacks at the Acacia railway station, said the challenges at Prasa and the deterioration had happened over time, and that some was detailed in the report of former public protector Thuli Madonsela.
“The work is to rehabilitate the vandalism and modernise the environment,” he said.
He said the Prasa board had been urged to move with speed to restore services.
Mbalula told of plans introduced to reinforce security, including walling in stations, saying the Central Line in Cape Town was receiving priority.
The minister said there was a collaborative effort with the Department of Public Works and Infrastructure together with the Human Settlements Department to get land for the resettlement of the people who invaded land on the railway reserves in Langa and Philippi.
“If they are not moving, we are going to undertake the mission of walling or fencing the railway lines to allow trains to operate,” he said.
However, Hlengwa noted with concern that there were sprawling informal settlements on the rails, instead of them being abated or pushed back.
He also raised the issue about people breaking the law and the state having to find them accommodation.
“All rights come with responsibility and consequences in how they are played out and exercised. While every citizen has a right to shelter and not to be left displaced, we may find that we run the risk of the abuse of rights,” Hlengwa said, adding that the estimated cost of the relocation of the informal settlements came close to R1 billion.
“It is illogical, unless interpretation of the law is corrected in this regard, this will be a precedent-setter and it will continue to leave infrastructure of the state susceptible to invasion,” he added.
Political Bureau