Transport minister John Watkins has come under fire after an ICAC hearing was told RailCorp bosses were too "distracted" to clean-up corruption.
Former CEO Vince Graham has told the hearing, addressing safety was the top priority when he took up the job in 2003, rather than acting on an internal report on corruption.
The corruption hearing has been shown two reports on favouratism towards certain dating back to 2004. Both were issued to Mr Graham.
He acknowledges receiving them but admits he took no further action.
His excuse is RailCorp and Rail Infrastructure Corporation (RIC) had just merged and the company was in disarray.
He told the hearing corruption was not being addressed at the same level of intensity as dealing with the consequences of fourteen deaths on the network in the Waterfall and Glenbrook train disasters.
Shadow Minister Gladys Berejiklian says Mr Watkins should have ensured wrongdoing was stamped-out.
"There's no doubt that safety should be a priority on the rail network and within public transport.
"But to suggest that corruption of this nature should go unfettered and should go undisciplined and unrecognised is simply unnacceptable."
Mr Graham says he had no visible evidence of corruption until November 2006.
Only then was an external firm contracted to look into a suspected systemic culture of corruption within RailCorp.
