The South African Federation of Trade Unions (SAFTU) acknowledges the important investigative work of the Sunday Times, which has once again done the work the state refuses to do. Its latest exposé lays bare how alleged irregularities, procurement abuses, and well-connected networks at PRASA have been allowed to run unchecked for more than a decade.
South Africa is not battling corruption; South Africa is suffocating under a mountain of corruption. Corruption alone does not collapse a country. What destroys nations is impunity: the certainty among the powerful that nothing will happen to them, no matter how much damage they cause, no matter how many billions vanish, no matter how many lives are shattered.
This state has normalized a doctrine of no consequences. Evidence is presented. Whistle-blowers risk everything. Parliament holds hearings that mean nothing. The NPA sleeps. And those who preside over the collapse walk away with promotions, new contracts, or seats in Parliament.
The Sunday Times did not reveal a new scandal. It confirmed a pattern, workers have understood for years: when executives are implicated in wrongdoing, they are not prosecuted. They are recycled, redeployed, reinstated, and rewarded. This is not an administrative weakness. It is a political betrayal.
A timeline written in betrayal
From 2010 to 2019, PRASA issued over R2.8 billion in irregular contracts under successive CEOs and acting CEOs. The SIU documented it. The Sunday Times exposed it. Workers and commuters endured the consequences, burning trains, collapsing rail corridors, and billions siphoned away from public service. Between 2015 and 2017, whistle-blowers sounded the alarm. Parliament heard them. Nothing happened. From 2018 to 2021, the Zondo Commission exposed the machinery of corruption across PRASA, Transnet, Eskom, Denel, and beyond. The government celebrated the report but abandoned its recommendations.
In 2022, the SIU formally submitted its PRASA referrals to the NPA; however, the NPA responded with silence. From 2023 to 2025, individuals named in both SIU and Zondo findings reappeared in high-ranking positions, SOEs, provincial government offices, and even Parliament.And in 2025, the Sunday Times laid out the full rot, thirteen years after the first warnings, and still not one prosecution has been finalised. This is no longer a governance crisis. It is a declaration by the state that the powerful will never face consequences.
Where they went: the redeployment machine that mocks the working class
According to the Sunday Times and public records, those named in the SIU findings did not disappear. They were not suspended, prosecuted, or removed from public life. They were absorbed into new positions like nothing had happened.
Lucky Montana, former PRASA GCEO, earned around R5.3 million a year. SARS says he owes R55 million, a debt so enormous that only undeclared income running into hundreds of millions could explain it. Instead of facing accountability, he is now in Parliament under the MK Party banner, drawing a massive public salary. Zondo documented his alleged links to patronage networks, and we recall that Jacob Zuma allegedly received monthly payments from Roy Moodley while already earning a presidential salary, double-dipping, that shaped an entire tender ecosystem.
Collins Letsoalo, implicated in PRASA-related irregularities, was placed at the helm of the Road Accident Fund, a multibillion-rand SOE. He was eventually dismissed, yet still faces no prosecution.
Nkosinathi Khena took up senior advisory roles in the transport sector. Lindikaya Zide moved into high-ranking roles within the North West provincial administration. Sibusiso Sithole became eThekwini City Manager and later joined Denel. Nkosinathi Sishi rose to become Director-General of Higher Education, one of the most senior posts in government.
Even supply-chain managers fingered in irregular procurement found new posts in municipal and provincial SCM offices. A career in procurement failure has become a pathway to promotion. This is why the state collapses while a small elite prospers. In South Africa, alleged corruption does not end political careers; it builds them.
The SARS red flag the NPA refuses to see
SARS revealing Montana’s R55 million tax debt should have triggered immediate lifestyle audits, asset freezes, and criminal investigations. How does someone with a known salary accumulate a tax bill that size? What income streams were hidden? What benefits were undeclared? Why is SARS dealing with this while the NPA ignores it?. In any functioning democracy, these questions would lead directly to the courtroom. Here, they lead nowhere. The system is designed to protect those inside it.
The Zuma Moodley SOE patronage network
SAFTU reminds the public that PRASA’s rot is part of a much bigger ecosystem.
Roy Moodley’s security companies allegedly benefited from SOE tenders across the state. Jacob Zuma allegedly received monthly payments from Moodley even while he earned a presidential salary, a form of political double-dipping that undermines constitutional integrity.
This patronage network created the fertile soil in which PRASA’s alleged irregularities grew. Zondo exposed it. The state ignored it, and the networks continue into the present.
The rebranding of the implicated as “liberators”
The greatest tragedy of this moment is that individuals named in the SIU and Zondo findings, Zuma, Montana, Molefe, Gama, and others, now re-emerge in politics, especially through the MK Party, and are embraced as champions of the oppressed.
Millions of unemployed, angry, and desperate South Africans, abandoned by ANC austerity, collapsing services, and a failed economy, were persuaded to vote for individuals linked to the very destruction they now promise to reverse. This is political fraud. When accountability collapses, the allegedly corrupt return as revolutionaries.
The democratic backlash: when the majority stops believing.
Workers look at this landscape and conclude something harsh but accurate:
“Elections are a scam. Nothing changes. The corrupt redeploy each other.”
Voter turnout has collapsed because the oppressed majority sees no difference between resignation letters, reshuffles, or recycled party lists. They understand that without accountability, the ballot becomes a ritual rather than a weapon. This disillusionment is not apathy. It is insight. It is clear about the nature of the post-apartheid state.
A betrayal of the liberation struggle itself
This is also a betrayal of the giants of our movement.
The ANC recently celebrated OR Tambo, yet his legacy of integrity, discipline, and collective accountability is being throttled by those who claim his name while undermining his values.
We recall the inquiry that exposed the truth about Chief Albert Luthuli’s death, that he was beaten, and the absurd “train accident” story was manufactured to hide apartheid brutality.
Our people paid with blood, with nooses, with solitary confinement, with exile, and with lives abandoned to torture. Tens of thousands died for freedom and democracy. Yet today their sacrifices are mocked by the rise of patronage networks, the recycling of implicated individuals into positions of power, and the abandonment of the black working class, the very motive force of the revolution. There is a direct line between today’s corruption and today’s inequality, unemployment, and poverty.
Corruption is not a “moral issue”
Corruption steals jobs. Corruption destroys hospitals. Corruption collapses railways.
Corruption is the theft of the future of the black working class.
SAFTU’s demands
1. SAFTU demands immediate NPA action on all SIU PRASA referrals
2. We demand full implementation of Zondo’s recommendations.
3. We demand public timelines for all SOE corruption referrals.
4. We demand lifestyle audits of all executives named in the SIU and Zondo reports.
5. We demand a SARS–NPA task team to investigate undeclared income.
6. We demand an end to redeploying those implicated back into public positions.
7. We demand protection for whistle-blowers.
8. And we demand a public inquiry into the NPA’s refusal to act.
A Statement was issued on behalf of SAFTU General Secretary Zwelinzima Vavi
For media inquiries, contact the National Spokesperson at
Newton Masuku at:
Newton@saftu.org.za
0661682157
Media Officer
Asive Dyani
0719019564
