The railway agency said it's planning to recruit at least 3,000 security officials. 

Prasa cancelled contracts with some security companies due to bad service.

The agency also suspected some were colluding with people to damage infrastructure.

Prasa spokesperson Makhosini Mgitywa said administrator Bongisizwe Mpondo will make an announcement to reveal the details of the initiative.

Mgitywa stated the new security initiative would hopefully combat collusion with vandals and thieves targeting the trains.

"We did not get as much value out of the security companies as we should have, that was the creation of very lousy contracts that they signed with Prasa that did not have the safeguards.

"So people expected to be paid even though the infrastructure was not protected. And we noticed that once we started talking about terminating the contracts, it was an attack on our infrastructure," said Mgitywa.

"We would have internal discussions about which lines we would open and even before we go public with that information we see vandalism, ramped up vandalism, which would suggest to us that there are people inside Prasa who are colluding with whoever is causing the damage to our infrastructure."

eNCA