Question NW1843 to the Minister of Transport
19 November 2021 - NW1843
Clarke, Ms M to ask the Minister of Transport
(1)Whether he will furnish Mrs M O Clarke with (a) a maintenance schedule for the properties of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa) in terms of (i) cutting the grass, (ii) picking up litter and (iii) the maintenance of fences and (b) a schedule and plan on how Transnet and Prasa plan to secure residents of Transnet and Prasa railway properties against crime; if not, what is the position in each case; if so, what are the relevant details in each case; 2) on what date will the missing fences around the specified properties be replaced?
Reply:
1. (a) (i & ii) A schedule for grass cutting and cleaning at Station and Workplace
facilities is on a periodic basis as reflected in table 1 below. The grass cutting service is included as one of those performed by the contractors as PRASA does not appoint a contractor for one specific service but covers a range of services included in the table below.
|
AREA |
TASK SPECIFICATION |
FREQUENCY |
|
|
Waste Collection and Disposal |
Empty and clean all waste baskets, receptacles |
Continuously |
|
|
Remove all waste to a specified and designated area |
Continuously |
||
|
Platforms & Railway tracks
|
Platform areas
|
Sweep platforms |
daily |
|
Remove papers and other foreign objects |
Continuously |
||
|
|
Sweep the railway tracks. |
Every three months |
|
|
Railway tracks. Note: Commuters work under protection on tracks and only during the off-peak) |
Remove papers and other foreign objects – Clean the railway tracks up to 200m beyond the edges of both sides of the platforms |
daily |
|
|
Grass and weeds |
Remove Grass and Weed |
Weekly |
Table 1: Schedule for grass cutting and cleaning at Station and Workplace facilities
(iii) After the unprecedented levels of vandalism and theft of assets, PRASA’s strategy to maintain fences at station level includes putting in place 3 years fencing maintenance contracts which will attend to all maintenance issues related to fencing.
These will support the stations which are due to receive improvements under the National Station Improvement Programme (NSIP) and the Alternative Building Technology (ABT) Projects. Stations earmarked to receive improvements are in the 12 priority corridors.
The tenders for these programmes have been advertised on various platforms such as eTender. These will then be evaluated and awarded to successful bidders for execution and are due to be completed before end of March 2022.
The purpose of these projects is to restore functionality at stations which includes the repairs or replacement of fences, painting of platform lines, lighting, provision of water and working toilets, ticket offices among other functional requirements.
(b) Security is not deployed at leased houses. The few that are not leased we do checks on these properties on the routes by security. Limited security is however deployed at commercial buildings that are not leased. The deployment will increase over the next month as it forms part of our total security deployment plan and intervention which will have a total of 4500 extra security guards excluding our internal guards, totalling 7000 people on the ground covering PRASA assets and infrastructure.
2. The 3 years fencing maintenance contracts will then be used to maintain these newly restored fences. The tenders for the three (3) years fencing maintenance contracts will be advertised before end of the financial year.