SA's rail safety is a train smash

[John Ashworth]

Newsmaker: Brenda Madumise : SA's rail safety is a train smash

Ten years after pledge to fix things, there has been no improvement, writes Chris Barron

Jun 4, 2011 1:21 PM | By Chris Barron
Times Live

After yet another rail accident in 2002, in which a Metrorail passenger train ploughed into a stationary Spoornet goods train outside Durban, the then transport minister Dullah Omar said the safety situation was untenable.

He launched an independent rail safety regulator giving it, he said, the legislative power and enforcement capability to "effectively monitor and manage all areas of rail safety risk".

He said he was "confident" the new regulator would "ensure" that rail safety in SA would be raised to international standards. The government was "committed" to this, he said.

Since then there has been no noticeable improvement. The latest figures we have show that between 2008 and 2009 there were 5307 rail accidents in which 1932 people were injured, and 434 people killed.

Now there has been another major crash, this time in Soweto, with more than 800 people injured. Followed, predictably, by another flurry of concern and commitments to do better.

Headlines tell us that the rail safety regulator is going to "crack the whip", but why should we take them seriously this time?

I was hoping to ask the CEO, Kethabile Moyo, this question but after undertaking to do an interview she did a vanishing act. As only the acting CEO, she apparently was not confident enough to answer questions about rail safety.

Instead I was directed to the chairman, Brenda Madumise, who does the job on a part-time basis, in gaps of her full-time job as a consulting advocate, and therefore might seem even less qualified to explain what the rail safety regulator has been getting up to since 2002.

My first question is why a body charged with such a critically important, indeed life-or-death, role, has an acting CEO who is so unsure of herself she cannot take questions from the media?

It is because the CEO, Mosenngwa Mofi, resigned in January, says Madumise.

Moyo, who previously was legal advisor to the organisation, was merely put in to plug the gap. She is "not yet ready to lead an organisation of this size", says Madumise, which is an interesting observation coming from the chair of the board which appointed her.

Why was there no succession plan in place to ensure a timely transition to the top job of someone properly qualified for it?

"Because he didn't retire, he resigned," says Madumise. "And you can never know if someone is going to resign, can you? We never knew he was going to resign."

His contract was only due for renewal in September 2011, so why did he resign?

"He was looking for greener pastures or he was looking for something different," she says. "Who knows?"

She herself was only appointed to the chair in October last year.

Which means that at a time when the issue of rail safety, with its enormous implications for the nation's economic growth, let alone the human implications, has reached crisis proportions the two people in charge of the rail safety regulator are both novices.

Madumise, 44, an advocate by training, says her qualification for the job is that she "knows how to lead".

The regulator is specifically mandated to "exercise oversight" of rail safety and regulate rail operations.

In the light of the appalling accident rate it seems fair to ask if the regulator has the capacity to do what it is mandated to do?

"I think we have," she says.

Later she admits the regulator has a critical shortage of engineers.

Of more immediate concern though was the recent revelation that there were only 10 safety inspectors for the entire rail network.

"That's not enough. That's why we're putting things in place to get more. That's our biggest challenge."

It is a challenge that should have been met a long time ago, but they have "plugged the holes" by outsourcing.

It worked, she says, but cost too much.

If it worked, why have there been so many accidents?

Because inspectors do not control what the operators do, she says.

"We regulate the industry in terms of setting standards the operators agree on."

Inspectors go out unannounced to check that the standards are being implemented.

And if they are not, does the regulator have the teeth to act?

"Yes," she says. "We can take away their operating licences."

Then why don't they?

"Because then there's no train between Khayalitsha and Cape Town. What will happen then?"

So the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) and Transnet Freight Rail (the old Spoornet) can thumb their noses at the regulator, knowing they will never withdraw their licences?

"We tread a very thin line here. They know we have the power to."

"But they know you won't?"

"We've done it before," she says.

Only to small private operators, she admits.

Indeed, when the efficiently run, transparently safety-conscious private operator Rovos Rail had an accident last year the regulator threatened within hours to close the company down.

Madumise blames the poor safety record on a lack of investment in infrastructure going back many years.

"We are hamstrung from executing our mandate because we're dealing with structural problems," she says.

Of course there has been a lack of investment. Most of the signaling equipment is outdated and signal failures are common.

But according to the regulator's annual report "a notable number" of accidents "have been directly linked to human error".

This means that faulty infrastructure notwithstanding, most accidents can be avoided?

"Yes," she agrees. That is why the regulator recently, in the wake of the Soweto crash, launched its "new" human factor management standard.

What was wrong with the old one?

There has never been one before, she says.

Why has it taken so long, bearing in mind that it was almost 10 years ago that the transport minister vowed to make rail safe?

"It takes long to put a standard together."

Ten years? Two world wars were won in 10 years.

"It takes long to put a standard together," she repeats, "because you are consulting an entire industry."

Rovos Rail uses a system of on-board monitoring to cut down on driver error.

Can the regulator not impose a similar system on other operators?

"We want to believe train drivers are properly trained," says Madumise.

Then why are so many accidents caused by human error?

"We want to believe the operator is training their people properly and adequately."

Do the facts not suggest otherwise?

"It might have nothing to do with training. It might have to do with fatigue or with the driver being drunk."

Madumise is confident the new safety standard will sort this out.

If it doesn't?

"Then we take action against you as the operator," she says.

We seem to have been here before.