The United National Transport Union (Untu) says that Transport Minister, Blade Nzimande has not responded to their request for a meeting.
The union has also criticised Nzimande’s decision to appoint new board members of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) without consulting them.
Earlier this month Nzimande announced new PRASA board members, led by Chairperson, Khanyisile Kweyama. The other appointees include Mashila Matlala, Nazir Ali, Doris Tshepe, Jenny Schreiner, Sango Ntsaluba and Louis Wessie.
Steve Harris who is the Secretary General of Untu told Political Analysis South Arica on Tuesday 17 April 2018 that although they have no authority to tell the minister who to appoint, they would have preferred that the minister agree to their requests of a meeting beforehand.
“We’re not gonna tell the minister who to appoint but what we need to do is to sit down with the minister and he needs to understand what has happened over the past and what we need to do as a collective not as individuals,” he said.
“The minister ignores the largest transport union that represents the majority in PRASA and does not afford us the opportunity to meet with him so that we can discuss our concerns as worker representatives,” he added.
Harris shared that the union is “very perturbed” about the appointments at PRASA “because this is the third or fourth board that’s been appointed in a question of two years…these sort of things don’t bring about stability.”
