The National Transport Movement (NTM) has blamed the delay of the release of public protector Thuli Madonsela's investigation into the Passenger Rail Agency of SA (Prasa) on people who know they are guilty.

NTM's deputy general secretary Craig Nte  said the individuals who had approached Madonsela's office and requested a postponement to allow them to make additional submissions to the investigation are Prasa employees who might have seen a copy of a preliminary report and knew they were in trouble.

Madonsela was supposed to have last Thursday made public her investigation into allegations of corruption in the parastatal, including its axed group CEO Lucky Montana. She postponed the release of the report to August 3.

"They are trying to frustrate the process because of this man [Montana] who thought he would control every situation because of his political connections. He is not there to protect them anymore," Nte said.

He alleged that the individuals had signed multibillion rands worth of tender deals despite not being procurement officers. "We want to see those who committed irregularities brought to book. If there are internal processes to be followed, let them take place. If there are criminal cases, they should be charged. This is public money, people want to know what happened to their money and it must be recovered and put back into the state coffers," Nte said.

Madonsela's spokeswoman Kgalalelo Masibi said the parties had been given until Friday to respond, adding that Montana has already responded in writing.

She, however, refused to mention other people who had approached Madonsela with the request.

"We do not disclose the names of the parties during the investigation, but I can confirm that they include a former board member, former staff members and current staff members," Masibi said.

Attempts to get comment from Montana yesterday were unsuccessful.

Meanwhile, the Prasa board could not yesterday say how ready it was to submit a comprehensive report on recent shenanigans at Prasa.

These include the axing of Montana and the suspension of the parastatal's head of engineering Daniel Mtimkulu, about whom the organisation yesterday released a statement announcing that it has laid criminal charges against him for allegedly faking qualifications. Mtimkulu resigned yesterday.

Mtimkulu allegedly claimed to have a PhD but failed to produce proof. He has been charged with gross dishonesty and fraudulent misrepresentation.

Prasa group chief strategy officer Sipho Sithole referred inquiries on the state of readiness of the report to Transport Minister Dipuo Peters's office.

Department of transport spokesman Tiyani Rikhotso said the department was still awaiting the report and had no clue when it would be presented to Peters.