Simba Rushwaya
JOHANNESBURG – THE issue of e-tolls on Gauteng roads still remains unresolved with top government officials giving different signals on the way forward, while the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has gone mum on the controversial issue.
The Organisation Undoing Taxi Abuse (Outa), is advocating for the scrapping of the unpopular system
In a statement this week, Outa said; “Our stance remains one of we will never pay for e-Tolls and will defend the 2,9 million freeway users who have never paid a single e-Toll bill, should Sanral issue them with a summons.”
Transport Minister Dipuo Peters last month said that the largely rejected system was here to stay.
“Government has already created space for public transport operators not to pay e-toll and concessions have been given to deserving cases. We’ve also spent more than R1 billion in creating alternative roads in Gauteng. We need good quality roads, otherwise people will say they have to drive on what’s left of the road and not on the left of the road,” says Peters.
But African National Congress (ANC) chairman for Gauteng province Paul Mashatile believes there was need to look at the impact of e-tolls “including the issue of affordability.”
”In our last conference we said the e-tolls in their current form are unacceptable. Many of our people and small businesses are trying to come into the economic hub and that is where they get affected, by these toll roads,” Mashatile told the Times.
Outa’s chairman, Wayne Duvenage attributes ANC’s waning support in the 2016 Municipal elections to e-tolls.
“They (ANC) missed a fine opportunity to acknowledge and address the anger of the Gauteng motoring public, and instead they looked away and hoped that by the time the 2016 local elections arrived, the eruption would have subsided.
“What made matters worse for the ANC was that by the time the 2016 elections came around, the e-toll scheme had already failed. This was evident by the scheme’s inability to raise even 1% of the outstanding R5.9-billion e-toll debt by May 2016, despite threats of summonses and the placebo offer of a 60% discount dispensation,” argues Duvenage.
ANC secretary general Gwede Mantashe acknowledges that e-tolls were a factor for the party in 2016, saying, “The ANC will engage middle-class South Africans in Gauteng regarding e-tolls, as this has cost the party in the local government elections.”
Efforts to get a comment from Sanral spokesperson Vusi Mona were unsuccessful as he had not responded to written questions to him from Gauteng Guardian at the time of going to press.
In an attempt to encourage motorists to payup, Sanral recently offered to discount e-tolls by 60% in a bid to get more Gauteng road users to adopt the system hit the brick wall, with the road agency missing its collection targets.
According to Sanral’s latest figures, in May 2016, when the 60% offer expired, the group collected only R109 million (R36 million of which was from the discount) from a target of R195 million.
In April, where there was a reported “rush” from motorists to take advantage of the discount, Sanral collected just over R125 million in e-tolls (R59 million of which was from the discount) from a target of R130 million.
This means that Sanral only collected 72% out of the targeted amount of R325 million for April and May – and only 30% of that was from the discount.
Anti-tolling and civil action group, Outa, revealed in June that Gauteng motorists who took advantage of the e-toll dispensation plan paid an average of R1 100 each.
In a Parliamentary report on the uptake of the dispensation plan, it was revealed that a total of R145 million was paid by 130 000 motorists – averaging R1 115 per motorist.
E-toll collection has been a massive headache for Sanral, which has consistently missed collection targets over the past few years. The roads agency started issuing legal letters to road users who were not paying.
Outstanding e-toll debt has risen even further since September 2015, and is now estimated at around R8 billion – and climbing.
According to a report by Moneyweb, Sanral and Outa have met on a number of occasions to flesh out a possible test case for the ongoing e-toll saga, where the two groups could possibly determine test the legality of the system without mass court action against road users.
Later this month, Outa’s legal team, led by Gilbert Marcus, will finalize preparations against Sanral’s lawyers at Werksmans, in a defensive challenge of the public’s rights to ignore the e-toll scheme in court. Government issued summonses to 6,000 members of the public over their failure to pay e-tolls .
– Guardian simba.rushwaya@gautengguardian.co.za Twitter@SimbaRushwaya