ADSL on its last legs in South Africa

-
Image
  By   Daniel Puchert Partially state-owned telecommunications company Telkom announced in its financial results for the year ending 31 March 2025 that its ADSL subscribers had more than halved to under 30,000. According to the company’s operational data, ADSL lines decreased from 64,959 in March 2024 to 29,770. This 54.2% decline highlights that the legacy broadband technology is slowly approaching the end of the road. Telkom’s ADSL business peaked at the end of March 2016 with 1.01 million subscribers — two years after fibre upstart Vumatel  broke ground in Parkhurst . What followed was a sharp decline in Telkom ADSL subscribers. Customers connected to its copper networks decreased by more than 500,000 over the next four years. This was partly driven by Telkom itself, which began actively switching off its copper network in some neighbourhoods. If it did not have fibre in the area, it would offer a “fixed line lookalike” wireless service that ran over its cellular ...
Post a Comment

POLITICS SIU says Prasa will recoup just R65m of R2.3bn paid for 'too tall' locomotives

-

 Aphiwe Deklerk

Political reporter
 
17 February 2021 - 14:35
One of the 'too-tall' locomotives bought by Prasa in a controversial deal in 2015. File photo.
One of the 'too-tall' locomotives bought by Prasa in a controversial deal in 2015. File photo.
Image: Supplied

The Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) stands to recover just R65m of the R2.3bn it paid upfront for locomotives that were too tall to run on the country's railways.

That's according to the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) which made a presentation to parliament's standing committee on public accounts (Scopa) on Wednesday.

Mike Koya, who is leading the team investigating Prasa, told the committee that due to the liquidation of Swifambo, which was given the tender for the locomotives, Prasa would only recover R65m from the billions it paid upfront.

“There was R2.3bn that was prepaid for the locomotives and the locomotives that they delivered aren't the correct ones ... the investigation was done and it went to court and [the tender] was set aside,” said Koya.

Back on track: too-tall locomotives to leave SA for new home

Hobbled by height, court and lockdown obstacles, the Spanish locos are finally on their way to Tanzania
NEWS
4 months ago

He said the SIU investigation on the matter was about how Prasa could recover the prepayment made to the company.

“Swifambo is being liquidated and negotiations are ongoing between Prasa and the liquidators. Apparently the owner of Swifambo is also in court to try to stop the liquidation process. Altogether there are three court matters involving the trains.

ADVERTISING

“If you look at the liquidation, if liquidation goes ahead, you can only [reclaim] R65m of the amount that has been paid because all those locomotives that were supposed to be delivered were sold back on auction, bought by the same company that was delivering them to Prasa,” said Koya.

He said Prasa's legal department was dealing with the court cases but there were new proposals regarding the locomotives.

“That process will mean another procurement process that must take place [and more] money that is being spent,” said Koya. He said it was unclear whether Prasa would go ahead with the deal which would mean it would forfeit the claim of R65m.

SIU head Andy Mothiba promised the committee that the unit will appear again in parliament to disclose more details on the locomotives tender, including a breakdown of why Prasa stood to recover only R65m.

TimesLIVE

MORE

Prasa performance gets worse as it achieves just 17.5% of its targets

The auditor-general's office has called for urgent intervention to save the country's struggling rail agency.
POLITICS
2 weeks ago

Move your shacks off our tracks, Prasa pleads with illegal occupiers

Passenger rail authority Prasa has urged illegal occupiers to remove their shacks from railway tracks in Cape Town.
NEWS
2 weeks ago

'They can go to Absa': Lucky Montana as Zondo follows the money in Prasa graft probe

The Zondo commission will scrutinise the bank records of Lucky Montana, former CEO of the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa), as part of an ...
NEWS
4 months ago

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise?

-
Image
  There are a lot of people, but the oceans are very big.   Rosley Majid/EyeEm via Getty Images If everyone on Earth sat in the ocean at once, how much would sea level rise? March 29, 2021 2.07pm SAST Author Tony E. Wong Assistant Professor of Mathematical Sciences, Rochester Institute of Technology Disclosure statement Tony E. Wong does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment. Partners Rochester Institute of Technology  provides funding as a member of The Conversation US. The Conversation is funded by the National Research Foundation, eight universities, including the Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Rhodes University, Stellenbosch University and the Universities of Cape Town, Johannesburg, Kwa-Zulu Natal, Pretoria, and South Africa. It is hosted by the Universities of the Witwatersrand and Wester...
Read more

Andrew Watson: The 'most influential' black footballer for decades lost to history

-
Image
  By Andrew Aloia BBC Sport Last updated on 11 October 2021 11 October 2021 . From the section Football Watson was a trailblazer who helped transform how football was played There are two murals of black footballers facing one another across an alleyway in Glasgow. One helped shape football as we know it, the other is Pele. Andrew Watson captained Scotland to a 6-1 win over England on his debut in 1881. He was a pioneer, the world's first black international, but for more than a century the significance of his achievements went unrecognised. Research conducted over the past three decades has left us with some biographical details: a man descended of slaves and of those who enslaved them, born in Guyana, raised to become an English gentleman and famed as one of Scottish football's first icons. And yet today, 100 years on from his death aged 64, Watson remains something of an enigma, the picture built around him a fractured one. His grainy, faded, sepia image evokes many differen...
Read more

Which countries have the world’s largest coal reserves?

-
Image
  Visual Capitalist Elements   | September 15, 2021 | 8:58 am   Intelligence   Australia   USA   Coal   The Countries With the Largest Coal Reserves Cheap and abundant coal remains one of the largest sources of energy worldwide, even as governments set out goals to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. While jurisdictions in Europe and North America have been phasing out coal use in power generation, it has been on the rise in Asia. China and India are scrambling to provide electricity to a growing population and relying on coal power plants to meet demands despite the environmental costs. SIGN UP FOR THE ENERGY DIGEST Sign Up This infographic takes a look into the  BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2021 , and the 11 countries that make up  89%  of the coal reserves globally. Coal Reserves, by Country While countries need to phase out coal by 2040 to achieve the Paris Agreement goal of limiting global warming to 1.5ºC, consumption in key ...
Read more