26 September 2025
By 2021, the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) had collapsed. As corruption and mismanagement took hold over the previous ten years, the rail service became increasingly unreliable and unsafe. Almost all of PRASA’s customers stopped using the train in this period, many opting for more expensive but reliable taxi and bus services.
Infrastructure decayed without being maintained or replaced. Security contracts were allowed to lapse, leading to widespread vandalism. The covid pandemic saw the final destruction of the rail service.
Since then, there has been some improvement. Rail lines have been restored, new trains have been procured, and more people are taking the train.
But there is still a long way to go. PRASA has not received a clean audit opinion since 2016. It has recorded irregular expenditure of between R1-billion and R6.5-billion a year over the past three years. And some lines and stations, especially in the Eastern Cape, are yet to be brought back to service.
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