Transnet wins legal battle blocking Chinese locomotive supplier from selling spare parts
CRRC is barred from selling locomotive components that could revive 120 grounded Transnet locomotives.
Transnet cargo train. Picture: Supplied/Transnet
Stephen Grootes speaks to Michael Merchant, key investigator from Open Secrets about Transnet's recent court victory and its potential implications for Transnet's operations in South Africa.
Listen to the interview in the audio player below.
Transnet secured an urgent court victory in the Tshwane High Court preventing Chinese locomotive supplier China Railway Rolling Stock Corporation (CRRC) from selling or disposing of spare parts that could return 120 grounded locomotives to service, that it had previously bought from the company.
The court has ordered CRRC to provide the parastatal with the spare parts to service the locomotives it had purchased as far back as 2012, during the so-called 'state capture' years.
This particular deal saw Transnet purchase 1064 locomotives from four different companies, with CRRC being one of those.
Fast forward to present day, 120 of those locomotives are out of service, because it cannot be serviced.
According to Transnet, the spare parts and components would allow the locomotives to be serviced and brought back into service.
Speaking to Stephen Grootes on The Money Show, Michael Merchant, key investigator from Open Secrets says this case goes back to the height of the state capture years.
He says during those years, many dodgy deals were signed, like the one between Transnet and CRRC.
"Essentially this is now a 14-year saga, and it goes back to the kind-of core years of state capture. And it goes back to one of the most significant state capture transactions."
- Michael Merchant, key investigator - Open Secrets
"Now infamously, this was the contract that was inflated by Brian Molefe and Anoj Singh and other senior members of Transnet, by around about R16 billion. So the cost went from R38 billion yo R54 billion overnight."
- Michael Merchant, key investigator - Open Secrets
"It is so remarkable that one of the largest state-owned rail companies in the world, CRRC would be complicit in what we now know to have been absolutely brazen corruption."
- Michael Merchant, key investigator - Open Secrets
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