The Passenger Rail Agency of South Africa announced on Tuesday that Sibusiso Sithole had been appointed as its group CEO.
He has been appointed for a period of 12 months effective from June 1, 2018.
In a media release Prasa said that Sithole had been appointed to "bring stability and certainty to PRASA".
He is the former city manager of eThekwini Municipality. Other positions he has held include general manager at the Umgeni Water Board.
The chairperson of the Prasa board Khanyisile Kweyama said that the organisation was facing "immense challenges".
"Prasa is at its worst performance levels and there is an expectation from the public that we serve for the organization to turn itself around," she said in a statement.
"We cannot overemphasize what our expectation as a board is from the CEO. Fortunately with the kind of experience he has, we should not expect any difficult in him executing the task at hand."
Sithole's appointment as CEO comes a month and a half after Minister of Transport Blade Nzimande appointed an interim board at the passenger rail body to serve for a 12-month period.
“As the shareholder, I ensured that only people with expertise, experience and integrity serve in these vital positions,” he said at the time.
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