02 Mar 2020

Botswana Railways (BR) acting director engineering, Mr Boineelo Shubane says he did not accede to a suggestion by BR engineering manager, Mr Baboloki Phuthego to suspend the trains’ movement prior to the derailment of a passenger train 0501 on December 10, 2019.

Testifying before the board of inquiry on Friday, Mr Shubane said Mr Phuthego called him at around 8pm on December 9, 2019, asking him to call BR chief executive officer, Mr Leonard Makwinja and request for permission to suspend the movement of trains due to the weather situation.

However, he said he did not call Mr Makwinja because nine or eight minutes before Mr Phuthego called him, the civil engineering team had also forwarded a message to the Exco Whatsapp group, saying, ‘the railway line from Lobatse to Mahalapye is clear, trains can move on it’.

He also stressed that the suggestion to suspend trains’ movement did not need to get to the manager’s level for a decision to be made.

“If there is a message that says, the line is clear, that communication doesn’t need to go to the CEO. It’s an operational communication to say the trains can run. My decision not to call the CEO was based on the fact that communication was made and it was written that the lines are clear, the trains can move,” he added.

Since he received two conflicting messages, he said, “When Mr Phuthego called I asked him isn’t that contradictory to what I have just seen now, that the trains should move, and you are saying they shouldn’t move?”

To resolve the conflict in the decision-making process, given that Mr Phuthego was of the opinion that trains’ movement should be suspended, BR acting director engineering said he asked Mr Phuthego to substantiate his opinion for the need to suspend trains and also ensure that there was a synergy of what needed to happen.

His concern, he said, was that the information from the civil engineering team was not in par with what Mr Phuthego was suggesting.

Almost two hours later, after 10pm, he said, Mr Phuthego called him back again to find out if he had been able to talk to Mr Makwinja, ‘then I said, no I haven’t, because I’m still waiting for you to tell me why we should suspend the trains.’

Although a conflict of opinion was still persisting, Mr Shubane pointed out that ‘the engineering department is not responsible for running of trains, but for availing the rolling stock and the permanent way’.

“The full responsibility of running trains lies solely with operations. So, as long as Engineering had said everything is okay, so a decision had to be made based on that,” he added.

Mr Shubane said he needed to satisfy himself that, indeed, it was a call that needed to be taken. However, he said there was no empirical evidence to substantiate or convince him that there was need to suspend trains, as he had expected.

What he picked from his conversation with Mr Phuthego, he said was that his opinion was more of taking a precautionary measure, not based on the evidence that was given, as per the message that was shared by the civil engineering team.

Another witness, BR acting director operations, Mr Mthulisi Lotshe explained that there was a procedure for stopping trains’ movement at BR. For BR operations department to stop the trains, Mr Lotshe said it required information from the relevant department.

“And even on stopping those trains, it doesn’t need the operations manager or the CEO’s permission.
The controller, whom that anomaly had been reported to, would stop the train.

If you say there is a wash away at Bonwapitse, the controller won’t give the train a proceeding authority to move from Pallaroad to Mahalapye. Had they said that, this train would have not left Pallaroad,” he added.

At BR, he said all the departments such as operations, civil and mechanical engineering, HRM, supply chain, worked hand in hand.

For example, Mr Lotshe said for mechanical engineers to fix a locomotive, they required spares from supply chain, for operations to move traffic it required locomotives from mechanical engineering. ENDS