The head offices of the Passenger Rail Services of SA (Prasa) in Pretoria were left in the dark on Wednesday morning when City of Tshwane pounced to disconnect their electricity.

Accompanied by municipal officials, mayor Randall Williams continued with their campaign to disconnect businesses, residents and government entities who were not paying for their rates and services. The campaign started last week and the City of Johannesburg  also started its own this week. 

“Prasa doesn't even know where some of their properties are and we have consolidated their properties for them and they owe R28m,” said Williams.

He said the head office building alone owe almost R377,000 and that Prasa had been informed about their bill some time ago.

“It is irresponsible of them not to come forward and approach the city and make payment arrangements. If they act irresponsible, the city can't suffer consequences,” said  Williams.

The city has since collected about R500m since last week.

The train operations were not affected. 

Prasa spokesperson Andiswa Makanda said: “We do owe a lot of money to the city. We were entering into some negotiations, but there were things we needed clarity on and in the process, unfortunately, we got our electricity disconnected. We have entered into a payment arrangement and we are hoping in the next hour or so we will be reconnected,” said Makanda.