Shale gas in South Africa: game-changer or damp squib?

There are indications shale gas may be present in South Africa’s Karoo.
Reuters/Mike Hutchings

Horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing, otherwise known as fracking, has in the past few decades made available the gas in previously ‘tight’ shale geologies. This has shaken up the energy sector worldwide by contributing to relatively low oil prices. Almost all the shale gas development has taken place in the US where production has increased from about 1 to nearly 16 trillion cubic feet (tcf) over the past 25 years.

There are indications that shale gas may be present in a semi-desert region of South Africa known as the Karoo. The core region alone has an area of 400 000 km². If a viable gas resource were to be developed in the Karoo, what impact would it have on the global shale gas market? And how would it affect the energy economy of South Africa?

A few preliminary studies have been done on the potential for shale gas in the country. These include a report on the technical readiness for a shale gas industry in South Africa, a strategic environmental assessment on shale gas development commissioned by the Department of Environment which I co-led, and a multi-author academic book on hydraulic fracturing in the Karoo.

The research, presented at a recent conference, has led to a clearer picture of both the potential, and the challenges facing shale gas extraction in South Africa. The purpose of the conference, organised by the Academy of Science of South Africa, was to map out a multidisciplinary research plan to fill the critical knowledge gaps.

How much, how little?

The studies to date suggest that it’s increasingly unlikely that economically and technically viable gas will be found in the Karoo. First desktop estimates of gas-in-place at depth in the Karoo basin were hundreds of tcf.

More realistic guesses – which is what they remain, in the absence of new exploration and testing – put the upper limit for gas in the Central Karoo at about 20 tcf. This is a tiny resource by global standards. In terms of energy content, 20 tcf of gas is about forty times smaller than the known remaining coal reserves in South Africa. Conventional gas reserves offshore of Mozambique have been estimated at 75 tcf. On the other hand, the continental shelf gas field off Mossel Bay located on South Africa’s garden route, exploited and now nearly depleted, was 1 tcf.

A viable gas find in South Africa, even if quite small, would potentially transform the national energy economy. But making a large investment in infrastructure, regulatory tools, monitoring bodies, and wellfield development for a resource which may not exist is financially, politically and environmentally risky.

Any decisions about how the country should proceed must therefore be based on solid research which is why efforts are under way to adopt a multidisciplinary research programme to fill in the key knowledge gaps. On top of this, good governance is a prerequisite if South Africa is to proceed to shale gas development.

South Africa’s energy mix

South Africa’s formal energy economy is dominated by coal. But that cannot continue, as the country’s cheap, easily accessible coal reserves are nearing an end. Coal mining has also devastated important agricultural and water-yielding landscapes. Financial institutions are increasingly reluctant to fund new coal-burning power stations because of the impact carbon dioxide emissions are having on the global climate.

As a result, coal-burning power stations are likely, over time, to be replaced by wind and solar energy, or perhaps the more expensive nuclear option. But the degree to which the country’s energy supply can be based on intermittent sources like wind and sunshine depends on the availability of an energy source that can be easily switched on or off to fill the temporary shortfalls between supply and demand – like gas-fired turbines.

South Africa has already decided to increase the fraction of gas in its energy mix. The only question is where to source it from. Are international imports or domestic sources, like offshore conventional gas or onshore unconventional gas, including shale gas and coal-bed methane better?

Next steps

The optimal approach would be to take the first exploratory steps cooperatively, and in the public-domain, rather than in a competitive, secretive and proprietary way. This would allow South Africa to learn about the deep geology of the Karoo and the technologies and hazards of deep drilling, even if no viable gas was found.

A “virtual wellfield”, an imaginary but realistic computer simulation, could be developed on the basis of these findings. This would allow decision-makers and the public to better understand the economic spinoffs and environmental hazards of gas development before any significant actual development occurs.

The continuing low price of oil and the reduced demand for energy caused by the faltering South African economy buy the country time to do the necessary research and exploration. It can establish the appropriate regulatory environment and institutions before making rushed decisions with large potential consequences.

This is a cautious, evidence-guided agenda which should be acceptable to most people who care both about national development and the quality of the environment.

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This article is the first in a series The Conversation Africa is running on shale gas in South Africa.

Robert Scholes, Professor Bob Scholes is a Systems Ecologist at the Global Change Institute (GCI), University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Tutu's activism for justice shows how theology can be made real

Archbishop Desmond Tutu ‘s deep spirituality drove him to fight for freedom and justice.
EPA/Nic Bothma

Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu is internationally acclaimed for his life and work.

He has become best known for his work as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches, a base from which he led the churches in the struggle against apartheid for which he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1984, and his role as Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town in which he continued that public role as a leading symbol of black liberation and the bane of white South Africa.

He is also known for his role as the chairperson of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in which he endeavoured to help heal the nation as its father confessor; and lastly in a regularly deferred retirement, as a respected global elder in seeking to resolve both local and international conflicts.

Where does one even begin to start writing in appreciation of such a person and such a life? Fortunately, my task has been defined for me. I have been asked to write about his theology, an unusual request, but important nonetheless, given the fact that everything Tutu has said and done has been shaped, not by political insight and ambition, or by ecclesiastical interests, but by his faith in God, that is, by his theology.

Spiritual leader

Tutu is first and foremost, a spiritual leader, a man of deep prayer. But his deep spirituality is not and has never been the piety of a religious ghetto; exactly the opposite.

It was this that motivated his participation in seeking justice for the downtrodden and supporting the liberation struggle. It was this that gave him the courage to confront political bullies, stand up to abuse even from within his own church, and lead protest marches in the face of overwhelming displays of state power.

Functionaries of the apartheid state as well as those of our current government who abuse their power, look decidedly tawdry alongside the Arch. They are no match for his moral authority, his spiritual depth, or his theological wisdom. Nor can they compete with his humility, humour or humanity.

Unless we begin at this point in acknowledging Tutu’s spirituality we will completely misunderstand who he is and the contribution he makes to the life of the world. Critics who label him a political priest, totally misunderstand him. Tutu is politically astute, but he has had no personal political ambitions, nor was or is he a member of any political party.

Reconciliatory ministry

His social engagement began as he daily celebrated the Eucharist, listening in the silence to discern what needed to be said and done in the public arena. He had learnt this from his earliest teachers, the Fathers of the Community of the Resurrection in Rosettenville and Sophiatown, among them Trevor Huddleston, whose scathing critique of apartheid, Naught for your Comfort, remains a classic.

It goes without saying that Tutu was well versed in the theological doctrines of Christian faith. In particular he had a profound understanding of the incarnational character of Christianity, the faith conviction that

God was in Christ reconciling the world.

Therefore, he stressed the incarnational and reconciling ministry of the church in the life of the world. He discerned the image of God imprinted on the face of all human beings, and believed that despite their sins, none was beyond redemption. Thus forgiveness and the inclusive embrace of the other are fundamental to human and social well-being.

His favourite theological theme was the Transfiguration, a symbol of hope and encouragement in times of darkest despair when the cross looms large and suffering becomes inevitable though potentially redemptive. Tutu drank deeply from the wells of the Hebrew prophets whose words inspired his own as he challenged evil, spoke truth to power and words of hope to the powerless. All the while, he was being drawn deeper into the mystery of God as he journeyed into the suffering of people and trying to find meaning in the darkest of times. On one occasion, in speaking about the untimely death of a young Christian leader, he cried out

God is God’s worst enemy!

That is when theology becomes real – when the very word God becomes difficult to utter, when God is apparently absent. It is at the cross that faith is born. That is the faith of Desmond Tutu; the faith that enabled him to fight injustice and provide leadership in the struggle against oppression. That is Tutu’s theology, profoundly simple, yet simply profound.

John de Gruchy, Emeritus Professor of Christian Studies, University of Cape Town

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Why, a decade on, a new book on Zuma's rape trial has finally hit home

Supporters of President Jacob Zuma in full cry outside the court during his 2006 rape trial.
EPA

In 2007, barely a year after the man who went on to become South Africa’s president, Jacob Zuma, was acquitted on a charge of raping a young woman called “Khwezi” (the name given to Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo during her rape trial), gender activist Mmatshilo Motsei published “The Kanga and the Kangaroo Court”. The book was an unsparing account of a society that allowed a prominent man to get away with acts of violence, of a criminal and justice system that was broken for the vast majority of those who were sexually abused, raped and tortured, and of a political system that had lost its compass.

Motsei was eminently qualified to write the book, as a survivor herself and as one of the pathbreaking group of activists who had begun the movement to end violence against women. Few read her book. Those that did were feminist activists and scholars who felt that she had given voice to their concerns, that she had released a collective howl from the gut.

Cover of Redi Tlhabi’s book on ‘Khwezi’.
Jonathan Ball

Hardcore Zuma loyalists almost certainly did not read the book. Nevertheless they opened a new battlefront against Motsei, attacking her both publicly and privately.

Ten years later, broadcaster Redi Tlhabi has resurrected the story with her new book “Khwezi: The Remarkable Story of Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo”. This time the public response has been very different. Record-breaking audiences have attended book launches. And radio conversations reveal a rapt public entirely consumed with the injustice done to Khwezi. The book sold out within weeks and is in reprint.

What has changed, many wonder? It is certainly not the story.

The story hasn’t changed

Kuzwayo’s story was first told in excoriating terms in 2006 by feminist academic Pumla Gqola. It was also told by Motsei and numerous academics analysing the violent condition of life for women and queer people in South Africa.

These accounts zeroed in on the shortcomings of the trial that allowed evidence that should not have been permissible, the social norms that denied women sexual desire and that demanded of women compliance with a patriarchal rendering of what constituted a rape-able person – certainly the child Khwezi, raped by at least one man in her community, was deemed to be consenting.

They exposed the almost complete inability of progressive organisations such as the African National Congress (ANC) and its tripartite allies, the South African Communist Party (SACP) and trade union federation Cosatu, to treat women and queer people as right-bearing members. All of these stories have been told, many times.

What’s different this time is that Tlhabi speaks into a South Africa that has changed. The pact of complicity that surrounded Zuma has broken. There are still those who are prepared to die for the “100% Zuluboy” as the T-shirts at the rape trial proclaimed. But they are no longer as powerful.

The tripartite alliance has fractured into innumerable feuding, chair-throwing, accusation-hurling bands of people without an ideological or moral centre. Zuma is now an acceptable target of vitriol. His endless Pyrrhic victories against those seeking to remove him from office have created a vast constituency of critics, not united by ideology, political affiliation or social identity but by a sense that something needs to change. It’s safe to hate on Zuma.

The moment does offer an opportunity, evident even to a jaded, cynical feminist. Tlhabi’s book has stepped into this political space with a clear-eyed argument about the small and everyday violations of women that make possible a culture of rape, “a war on women’s bodies”, to use Pumla Gqola’s terms.

Forthright style

Using her forthright style, and staking a reputation for honest and fair comment that was built over a long period as a host in talk radio, Tlhabi challenges South Africans to consider the violence that is normalised and invisible in human interactions. She invites people to consider everyday terms, she uncovers the assumptions behind legal terms, she shows readers how to read the discourses that underpin a rape culture.

Jacob Zuma at his 2006 rape trial.
EPA

In the trial, Zuma’s lawyers painstakingly presented Khwezi as a woman who was untrustworthy, inconsistent, hyper-sexualised and entirely to be dismissed. Tlhabi gives us Fezekile Ntsukela Kuzwayo: a likeable, funny, garrulous, trusting woman, a loyal if exasperating friend and a caring daughter, someone who was loved by her friends and comrades.

Her family was the ANC, to be sure, but it was also a collective of feminist friends (old and young) who held her through the worst nightmares of the trial and subsequent re-exile. She shows us how one rape, one abuse, leads to another, that this violence is part of a never ending cycle.

Tlhabi is at pains simultaneously to honour the particular biography of Fezeka, while reminding readers that Fezeka is every woman. She does this well, mapping the single story against a contextual landscape of statistics and historical patterns of violence against women.

Anti-rape protesters at Jacob Zuma’s 2006 rape trial in Johannesburg.
EPA

Fezeka died, tragically and unexpectedly, just a year before the book was published. Her death, too early, is a dramatic end to the personal story. But the publication of the book gives her a public life that, perhaps, she might have felt valorised the experiences that the trial so powerfully cast as lies.

The real lies, of course, are political. Fezeka was let down over and over again by a movement that she loved and trusted. Some leaders – such as Communist stalwart and Zuma critic, Ronnie Kasrils – come out of this sorry story well. Most, however, do not.

‘Burn the Bitch’

Throughout the trial, while Zuma played to the rabble of supporters outside the court, the ANC leadership watched in silence. It was silent when he sang his archetypal phallic and violent anthem “Awuleth’ Umshini wam’” (Bring me my machine gun) outside the court room, and silent when members of the ANC carried banners saying “Burn the Bitch”.

Jacob Zuma at his rape trial in 2006 singing Awuleth’ Umshini wam’ a minute into the video.

And, perhaps, the leaders who were not silent were the most shocking. The ANC Women’s League mobilised actively against Fezeka both in public and in private. They were the storm troopers of patriarchy.

In 2007, unity in the ANC was mobilised against truth and justice. Cosatu and SACP leaders and activists thought that the rape trial was a distraction from the “real” issue of “returning the ANC to the branches”. “One fool at a time,” to coin Fezeka’s favourite line, the ANC and its allies fell behind Zuma.

Jacob Zuma supporters at the court in Johannesburg during his 2006 rape trial.
Mike Hutchings/Reuters

And no opposition political party offered meaningful support to Fezeka, happy perhaps to leave this dysfunctional family of the ANC to disintegrate.

What’s changed

South Africa has changed. In the wake of the trial, a new and assertive feminist movement seeded and grew. It began with the women’s rights organisation, “One in Nine”, formed expressly to support Fezeka, and has ballooned well beyond that.

Its daughters are everywhere - the four young women who held up banners during a Zuma speech at the Independent Electoral Commission in 2015, the queer black feminists on university campuses who are no longer prepared to tolerate violence in the name of unity, the artists and musicians and writers who are framing experiences in new ways. They too, are part of a new moment that makes possible a new conversation.

Yet. Yet. At least this reader, observing the hype surrounding the book, is still plagued by the question of who is listening, and what messages are being absorbed into South Africa’s political DNA. Will this book provoke the urgently needed attention to violence by the government, the police, the courts? Will people listening and reading ask themselves if they have enabled a culture of rape?

It isn’t just Jacob Zuma who stands accused of rape, after all.

Shireen Hassim, Professor of Politics, University of the Witwatersrand

This article was originally published on The Conversation.

Herbex misleads after legal setback

The Advertising Standards Authority can issue rulings on the adverts of non-members

By Safura Abdool Karim and Nathan Geffen
6 October 2017

The painting Cutting the Stone by Hieronymus Bosch depicts medieval quackery. Image from Wikipedia (public domain)

 

Herbex, an alternative health supplement company that attempted to stop the Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruling on its adverts, has released a press statement with several misleading claims. Herbex’s statement is at the bottom of this article.

About four years ago the ASA ruled against Herbex adverts that claimed that Appetite Control Tablets, Booster Eat Less and Attack the Fat Syrup reduced weight. Herbex estimated losses of several million rand over a three-month period because it could not advertise products the ASA had ruled against. The consumer activist who lodged the complaint, Harris Steinman, described Herbex’s products as not having “a snowball’s chance of working”.

The Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) made an order last week that was the product of negotiations between Herbex and the ASA. The order, with some minor caveats, restored the ASA’s powers that had been stripped by a High Court ruling of May last year. This was explained in a previous GroundUp article.

The order says that the ASA can rule on any advert, irrespective of whether the advertiser or publisher are ASA members. Their rulings, however, are only enforceable against members, but this is not new since the ASA’s decisions can, under the law, only bind its members. However since most of the country’s large publications abide by ASA decisions, if an advert by a non-member is found to be in breach of the code, that advert will usually be stopped from appearing in the mainstream press.
Herbex states that it is vindicated by the SCA settlement. While that’s a matter of opinion, the following is a matter of fact:

1. Herbex claims that the ASA masquerades as an organ of the state.
The ASA’s website has always stated that it is an independent body created by the marketing communications industry. Similarly, correspondence from the ASA does not contain any representations that the ASA is an organ of state or that it is empowered to regulate advertising through any law (with one narrow exception: electronic broadcasting, that isn’t relevant here). However, both the SCA and High Court orders required the ASA to amend their complaint letters to clarify that their processes are voluntary.

GroundUp has viewed the letter that Herbex claimed misrepresented the ASA’s status. There is no claim by the ASA that it is a government agency or that it is exercising some power of state in adjudicating its complaints. The only ambiguous statement in the ASA’s correspondence is that “rulings must be adhered to until reversed”. As part of the settlement, the ASA has agreed to include wording that explicitly states that their rulings are not binding on non-members.

Herbex also says the ASA claimed to have received authority from the Medicines Control Council (MCC) to regulate advertising about medicines. While the High Court did find that there was a misrepresentation by the ASA on whether it was empowered by the MCC, these claims by the ASA were removed from the Advertising Code before the case was heard. The court actually found the ASA “misrepresentation” to be irrelevant to Herbex’s case. As a result, this was not part of the High Court or SCA orders.

2. Herbex’s statement leaves readers with the impression that the ASA cannot make rulings against it and that the ASA has no jurisdiction over any advertisements unless the advertiser and publisher are members.

This inaccuracy is, in part, due to Herbex omitting a key paragraph of the court order from its statement. The omitted paragraph makes it clear that the ASA is able to adjudicate and make rulings on any complaint, irrespective of whether the publisher or advertiser are members. However, these rulings are only binding on members. This has always been the case, and something that the ASA agreed even before the High Court decision.

3. Herbex’s statement claims that the ASA only appealed the High Court ruling because it was overly broad.

In fact the High Court ruling left the ASA powerless and unable to adjudicate any complaints unless both the publisher and advertiser were both members of the ASA. So if Herbex hypothetically advertised in the Sunday Times, the ASA would not be able to make a ruling on the advert, following the High Court decision, even though the Sunday Times abides by ASA rulings. This was an absurd situation (and in our view the High Court should have done better). The ASA’s appeal to the SCA was aimed at restoring the powers it held before the High Court decision so that the ASA could continue to ensure that consumers were not being subjected to false and misleading advertisements, at least in the mainstream media. The ASA’s appeal succeeded in that the settlement says the ASA can make rulings on any advert, though, as has always been the case, the rulings are only binding on members.

4. Herbex claims that the SCA held that it was substantially successful in the appeal proceedings.
The SCA, as explained in GroundUp’s article, stated that both parties had “achieved a measure of success”. This is the reason why each party was ordered to cover its own costs with no adverse cost order against the ASA.

Notably, the SCA order overturned the interdict that prevented the ASA from making rulings on complaints involving Herbex as well as allowing the ASA to place adverse rulings against any advertiser or publisher on its website. The ASA’s adverse rulings against Herbex are on its website. They are enforceable, in that ASA members will not be able to run these Herbex adverts.

Herbex Statement

HERBEX VINDICATED BY THE SUPREME COURT OF APPEAL
1. In 2014 Herbex, represented by Mr Shoot of Fluxmans Inc Attorneys, instituted proceedings in the High Court of South Africa, Johannesburg against the Advertising Standards Authority (“the ASA”), a non-profit company masquerading as an organ of state and which had falsely claimed to be a statutory regulator purportedly mandated by the Medicines Control Council (“MCC”) to regulate amongst other things, medicine, complementary medicine and foodstuff advertising.

2. Herbex was successful in the High Court application and in May 2016, the High Court in its Judgment, essentially found that the ASA had misleadingly, claimed to have received authority from the MCC to regulate medicine advertising. The High Court further made an Order essentially:
2.1 declaring that the ASA has no jurisdiction over any person or entity who is not a member of the ASA and that the ASA may not in the absence of a submission to its jurisdiction require non-members to participate in its processes, issue any instruction, order or ruling against the non-member or sanction it ;

2.2 directing the ASA to include in its standard letters of complaint to non-members a reference to the fact that in the absence of a submission to its jurisdiction, it, the ASA, has no jurisdiction to adjudicate the complaint and that such non-member is not bound to participate in the ASA processes ;
2.3 ordering the ASA to pay Herbex’s costs of the High Court litigation, including the costs of two Counsel.

3. The ASA appealed the High Court Order essentially on the basis that it was overly broad. The Supreme Court of Appeal delivered its Judgment on 29 September 2017. As appears therefrom the parties agreed on an Order (save in regard to the issue of costs) to be made by the SCA essentially [emphasis added] :

3.1 declaring that the ASA has no jurisdiction over any person or entity who is not a member of the ASA and that the ASA may not, in the absence of a submission to its jurisdiction, require non-members to participate in its processes, issue any instruction, order or ruling against the non-member or sanction it;

3.2 the ASA was directed to include in its standard letter of complaint inter alia the aforesaid and that a non-member is not obliged to participate in any ASA process.

4. The only outstanding issue in the appeal before the SCA was the question of costs. The SCA vindicated Herbex by expressly finding that “The court a quo (High Court JHB) was undoubtedly correct in holding that in the absence of a submission to its jurisdiction the ASA has no jurisdiction over non-members and could not require them to participate in its processes. The respondent (Herbex) was substantially successful and consequently, there is no basis to interfere with the court a quo directing the ASA to pay the costs of that application, which include the costs of two Counsel.” Each party was directed to pay their own costs in regard to the appeal.

5. In addition, it is relevant to note that the Department of Health previously confirmed: “The MCC (The Medicines Control Council) does not have a formal relationship with the ASA. The statement that the ASA is managing the Marketing Code on behalf of the MCC is therefore incorrect”.

6. Herbex is relieved that the ASA finally conceded that it has no jurisdiction over any person or entity who is not a member of the ASA, that its private rulings which it issues to its members (the ASA incidentally only has 9 members) are not binding on non-members and the ASA may not: (i) require non-members to participate in its processes; (ii) issue any instruction; (iii) order; or (iv) ruling against non-members; or (v) sanction non-members. Herbex is also delighted that the ASA has been directed to amend its standard letters of complaint to non-member advertisers to advise them of the aforesaid. This will prevent non-member advertisers being misled by the ASA in the future. Indeed, as appears from the SCA Judgment, “ … non-members such as Herbex are legally entitled to ignore the rulings and procedures of the ASA” and such “Rulings are not legally enforceable against non-members.”

7. Hopefully this will bring an end to the ASA’s until now, unlawful assertion of jurisdiction, issuing of instructions, orders, rulings and sanctions against non-members.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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Exclusive: Damning letter from PRASA manager describes railway security meltdown

Railway police sit in first class carriages instead of patrolling trains and stations

By Zoë Postman
5 October 2017

Commuters hang on to a Khayelitsha-bound train. Archive photo: Mandla Mnyakama

The breakdown of security on Cape Town’s central railway line cost the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (PRASA) R100 million in a year, according to a damning letter from the regional security manager of PRASA, Ernest Hendricks, to the PRASA executive.

The letter, dated 31 May, and addressed to Tiro Holele, an executive member of PRASA at head office in Pretoria, describes in detail problems with the security system which has led to vandalism, cable theft, train delays and unsafe conditions on trains.

Hendricks told Holele that two performance audits — one by PRASA head office — had shown that the department was not meeting its mandate, and managers had been given 90 days to “turn things around”. “This deadline was not met and a two month extension was granted and yet again managers have not delivered on getting things implemented as part of the corrective action that needs to be taken,” Hendricks told Holele.

Among the problems he identified are:

• Private security contractors are not performing and PRASA has “suffered huge losses” as a result. Trains have been set alight where security guards are deployed.
  
• The relationship with the Railway Police has “soured”. There is no joint deployment, no joint operations, no police visibility on trains, no police visits to stations or depots, a reluctance to open case dockets or to arrest suspects, and police intimidation of PRASA staff. Hendricks said police did not prioritise incidents on the railways but only worked on reported crimes, and sat in first class carriages instead of physically patrolling trains. (The Railway Police report to the South African Police Service.)
  
• Trains have become “easy targets to criminals” and there was not enough staff to man trains to prevent vandalism. “Criminals have become so desperate that they have even committed crimes in the presence of our commuters, who just become onlookers out of fear for their lives”.
  
• Key areas of the rail network are not fenced, and “criminals have free access”.
  
• The conditions of service roads is poor and some cannot be used in winter.
  
• The growth of vegetation has made it easy for criminals to vandalise equipment without being seen, and obscures the view of the train drivers.
  
• The lighting in the rail network is poor and it is “virtually impossible” to patrol the area.
  
• The Western Cape region has no radios.
  
• Not all staff have protective clothing such as bullet proof vests or firearms. Staff have not been sent on annual compulsory training exercises.
  
• Most of the vehicles have more than 400,000 kilometres, are in “a poor state” and need to be replaced urgently. Some are damaged but there are no accident reports.
  
• Departmental overtime is very high, though it has been reduced from an average of R2.8 million a month to R1.4 million.
  
• Military veterans on the staff have criminal records which have not yet been expunged and as a result cannot be registered with the Private Security Industry Regulatory Authority.
  
• Many staff members are medically unfit for duty as a result of illness or substance abuse.
  
• All managers were promoted four years ago, some of them skipping two levels. “It is clear that their appointment as managers was not in the interests of the business.”
  
• Supervisors come late for work, don’t deal with matters of staff reporting to them, leave the workplace without permission and “don’t attend meetings or functions they must perform”.
  
• There is low morale among staff and high absenteeism. “The members run away from work, desert their posts and also show complete disregard for their supervisors and don’t perform their duties as protection officials,” writes Hendricks.
  
• Staff have not been issued with uniforms since 2014.
  

Hendricks suggested a number of solutions, including the “lockdown” of the most critical areas of the rail network with a brick wall. This would “drastically” reduce losses in these areas, he said.

Most of the losses were in the notorious “Bonteheuwel Split”, the area from Nyanga to Bonteheuwel and Bonteheuwel to Bishop Lavis. “For the past 12 months a total loss of more than R100 million was suffered by the organisation due to incidents which occurred in [the] Bonteheuwel split and the area up [to] Nyanga, ranging from vandalism of infra equipment, theft of infra equipment, claims as a result of injuries and fatalities”.

He also suggested:

• A “phase out” plan to reduce the use of external security companies over a three-year period. This, he said, would “cut the contract security cost by 66.6% over two years and would allow the internal security department to police the environment and be held accountable to protect the train environment.”
  
• Locking mechanisms on the trains, on-board cameras, buffers between coaches and foam to protect cables from theft.
  
• Clearing of vegetation.
  
• Design of service roads.
  
• Hotlines at stations for commuters to report problems.
  
• Better staff rosters and time-keeping mechanisms.
  
• Guard monitoring systems in staging yards, hotspots and some stations.
  
• Double cab, 4x4 vehicles so that response teams can be made up of four people.
  

Hendricks called for a “national security turn-around team” with clear target dates to be appointed by head office. The team could be housed in a flat in Cape Town instead of a hotel which had previously cost PRASA “more than R80,000” per person per month.
In response to a request for comment PRASA said: “it is important that we thoroughly investigate the allegations made in the letter. PRASA will then be able to comment with facts on the issue.”
The Railway Police did not respond to a request for comment.

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Published originally on GroundUp .

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