Thank you, hon member. I've already alluded in detail as to our plans with regard to what we are doing. The war room is really our major intervention. You are right ... as we speak... but we are minimising, because we are in the war room and we are addressing all these things on a daily basis. We are moving from manual to digital. As you would've seen, the biggest digital rail network in Gauteng, just behind Esselenpark, was launched by Minister Dipuo, and it has never been operational. We spent billions in that space. By June next year the entire railway network in Gauteng will be digital; no longer manual. All trains will run on time.
I'm saying to you, in terms of the war room intervention, give me
15 weeks to complete the 30 weeks we are implementing in terms of the war room. Then we can talk and you can say to me there is no war room; it's a talkshop. Even before I reach the 30th week, I want you to go down on the ground and police what I'm doing, and do the oversight. You will see the changes that we are coming up with. Over the years we have been talking and talking, and we design what we call turnaround strategies developed by the
Treasury through an entity called the Government Technical Advisory Centre, GTAC. Yet, when I arrived at Transport that turnaround strategy was gathering dust. Nobody was overseeing that in terms of its implementation. I then said, all hands on deck. I want executive authority in the war room. I want all our regions and I want Prasa's management and board to oversee.
Now, I can give you a wonderful example. There are components that have been lying around and all it needed was a chief financial officer, CFO, which Prasa did not have, to attach a signature. The war room identified the shortage of those particular components. We are releasing components faster and even bringing in the rolling stock that was packed at Central Johannesburg, not being utilised ... is going to be released with full speed to complement the numbers so that the trains increase and run on time. That is what we are going to do.
Over and above that, we are relooking at the entirety of the security setup within Prasa. We are talking drones where we cannot reach but at the same time we need quick speed recovery in terms of combat, where in the digital space you can see people stealing ... cable theft ... we need an army that can deal with that particular situation and put it aside.
What we have now within Prasa are crooks masquerading as security companies that are deeply involved in the theft of cables, the theft of copper and the theft of the signalling system, and crippling the system.
You can never run a country if you are not decisive. We are decisive. We have arrived and action will be taken. We are implementing the decisions of the war room. I have women who are there implementing the programmes of Prasa to ensure that we turn that situation around. That's where we are going. [Applause.] Talk is good but action must accompany the talk. So that's what we are doing.