By Lehlohonolo Lehana.
Zolani Matthews has been appointed Group chief executive officer (CEO)at the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa (Prasa).
This was announced by transport minister Fikile Mbalula on Saturday at the Langa train station in Cape Town.
Mbalula said Matthews is a seasoned professional with an understanding of international and domestic business strategy.
“Who has operated in dynamic, complex and agile organisations, ” added Mbalula.
Prasa has not had a permanent CEO since the departure of Lucky Montana in 2015. Since then the railway agency has had ten acting CEO’s in six years.
Matthews professional track record of over 30 years bears witness to his focus on corporate governance, transparency and value-based organisations. He holds a Master’s degree in Public Administration from Harvard University.
He currently holds the position of Chairman at The Ports Regulator of South Africa (since June 2020) and serves as a board member in a number of companies, including enX Group Ltd (2020) and Zaclear Holdings Ltd (2019).
His previous positions include that of Managing Director at Fordworks Associates and Senior Manager at Armaments Corp. of SA. He is also a councillor of the Independent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA).
At ICASA, Matthews went up against Keabetswe Modimoeng (the existing acting chairman), Yolisa Kedama, Peter Zimri, Luthando Mkutumela, Charley Lewis, Amanda Cuba and Sandisiwe Ncemane.
Matthews was also the director at the South African Post Office for four years, where “he demonstrated his expertise and well-developed understanding of risk-based organisational processes in building resilience […] and championing the goal to shift the Post Office into new revenue streams”.
In addition, Matthews successfully led the business growth behind IMVULA by focusing on Security, Healthcare, Logistics, amongst others, and helped the company’s workforce grow behind 10 000 employees.
Mbalula admits that Prasa has experienced many challenges in its 12 years of existence, in 2015/16 irregular expenditure at the railway agency stood at R4.1 billion alongside a fruitless and wasteful expenditure of R541 million.