A Young train driver is on stress leave and receives counselling after an armed robber grabbed her and tried to pull her into a bush while his two accomplices were robbing seven security guards and two technicians at gunpoint.
Nomveliso Brookwe (30), a train driver of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (PRASA) on the notorious Central line between Cape Town and Khayelitsha in the Western Cape, ordeal started just before 22:00 last night when the empty train she was driving back to Cape Town came to a halt between the Khayelitsha and the Nonkqubela Station.
Brookwe, who was accompanied by seven unarmed security guards, found that the train had no power and PRASA technicians were called to attend to the problem.
When the technicians arrived Brookwe and the guards left the train to stand with them at the third coach where they were checking the power substation.
Steve Harris, General Secretary of the United National Transport Union (UNTU), says two armed robbers overpowered the security guards and robbed them of two cell phones. The third armed robber grabbed Brookwe. She ran away after she managed to escape. The security guards and the technicians followed her while shots were fired at them. All the victims managed to escape unharmed.
Brookwe, a UNTU member, told Harris she and her colleagues who are driving trains on the Central line have been working with a sword over their heads. “We are constantly living in fear. Every time a colleague is attacked, we cannot help to wonder who will be next. I have been lucky up to now. This is the first attack on me,” she told Harris.
Brian Davids, UNTU executive council member and full time trade union representative, took Brookwe for counselling this morning as she is extremely traumatized. On the recommendation of the councelor Davids also took Brookwe to a doctor and she was booked off sick for suffering from severe trauma.
Harris says Brookwe is too afraid to return to her job on the Central line and wants PRASA to relocate her to a new route.
“PRASA and the SAPS refuses to acknowledge that it is a war out there for train crews, especially on the Central Line. What does it help to have seven unarmed security guards escorting a train? What can they do against a firearm or a knife.?
“The Central Line is one of the hot spots where extra police officers were deployed as part of the so called Rapid Rail Safety Awareness Campaign that was lunched by the SAPS on 14 December last year and that will continue till the end of this month. The aim is to
alert commuters to crime on trains and railway lines and to get them to assist the SAPS with information about these criminals. A team of police officials were deployed nationally to enhance visibility on railway lines and trains and to focus on hot spot like the Central line. Where were these police officials when the train came to a halt?” asks a furious Harris.
UNTU has repeatedly over the past seven months accused PRASA and the Government of recklessness regarding the lives and safety of train crews after train driver Piet Botha was executed in broad daylight while waiting for a train at the Netreg Station on the Central line in June last year.
In December, last year UNTU and its affiliated federation, FEDUSA, pleaded officially with Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa to intervene and to appoint and chair a joint task team consisting of the highest leadership levels of Government, represented by the Ministers of Finance, Transport, Police, Small Business, FEDUSA, UNTU, and PRASA management to prevent the total collapse of South Africa’s passenger railway operator. Ramaphosa has yet to respond.
“It is a sad day for all South African taxpayers when its Government blatantly disregard the basic principles of our Constitution which gives everyone a right to life and to work in a safe environment, “says Harris.
For more information phone Harris on 082 566 5516.
Issued on behalf of UNTU by Sonja Carstens, Media and Liaison Officer. For UNTU Press Releases e-mail sonja@untu.co.za or phone 082 463 6806.
