African press review 15 July 2015

South Africa's Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa is gripped by an incredible controversy about tall trains and tall stories as it prepares to launch a new flagship service. Meanwhile, Nigeria's armed forces wonders what to do with its plethora of young army generals.

Vanguard reports that about 25 major generals are facing early retirement after being given their marching orders.

Press reports say the new Armed Forces chiefs are either course mates or younger in the rank to several deposed army chiefs which means that they cannot serve under their junior.

TheNigerian Tribune reports that the changes at the helm of the military were motivated by President Muhammadu Buhari’s intent to have a clean slate in place before embarking on his maiden visit to the United States, expected to be dominated by the fight against the Boko Haram insurgency.

The newspaper says that US President Barrack Obama, will be needing concrete answers from Buhari’s commanders about what Nigeria’s military chiefs did with the huge amounts of money released for the fight against terrorism.

The Guardian says Buhari’s non-appointment of his own ministers and defence chiefs 43 full days after taking office had been interpreted as signifying not-so-sure footedness by the president.

Meanwhile Wednesday’s Nigerian papers have been heckling the president of the Senate, Bukola Saraki, after he tweeted that President Buhari did not need to send the list of service chiefs to the House for confirmation. Saraki later amended the controversial message posted on his handle stating that the Senate would be ready to screen the service chiefs anytime they were presented to the Senate.

In South Africa tempers have been flaring between the press and officials of the Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa, or Prasa, over its new Afro 4,000 train locomotives recently acquired from Spain.

The company’s CEO Lucky Montana had invited journalists to come test the blue train as it had a trial run from central Pretoria’s Bosman station to Pretoria north and back. But little did he know he was about to start an unfortunate “screaming game” over its suitability for local rail lines.

Mail and Guardian quotes Sunday’s issue of the Afrikaan newspaper Rapport claiming that the locomotive was too tall for the tracks, quoting senior rail engineers with firsthand knowledge of the saga.

City Press on its part warned that the trains posed a significant safety hazard adding that the rail agency went ahead with the transaction despite the manufacturer informing them they could not adjust the height of the trains.

In its own damning report, BusinessDay said the 13 diesel locomotives are worth 44 million euros, adding that Prasa planned to buy 57 more under a 7-billion-euro order – denouncing the deal as “the biggest tender blunder of our time”.

City Press says the main opposition Democratic Alliance has entered the fray. According to the paper, the DA said it shouldn't be difficult to prove if Prasa's head of engineering does, in fact, have the qualifications he claims to have.

Prasa’s CEO, who plans to launch the train service on the long distance Shosho-loza Meyl line as soon as August, is reportedly furious and doesn’t understand how the story transformed into a hot air balloon.

In Lucky Montana’s words the graphics published in Afrikaans Sunday newspaper were "very erroneous and grossly inaccurate", not trying to empower the readers of Rapport but to stir up emotions with racist undertones. Eyewitness News meanwhile calls for restraint with a very telling cartoon about Prasa’s “tall trains and the tall stories” being told by the press.