Sanral jail time threats go too far: JPSA
Justice Project South Africa lead, Howard Dembovsky says that Sanral has overplayed its hand with its latest threats that non-payment of e-tolls will lead to jail time and a criminal record.
On Wednesday (2 April) transport minister Dipuo Peters revealed that over half a billion rand in e-tolls remained unpaid, and the roads agency had spent R54 million to collect R50 million in March.
Sanral has now indicated that it has sent over R620 million in unpaid fees to its Violations Processing Centre.
According to reports from Eye Witness News, Sanral chief financial officer, Inge Mulder said that failure to make payments would result in criminal charges and could see motorists facing jail time.
“The non-payment of tolls is not a traffic offence – it’s actually a criminal offence,” Mulder said.
Sanral has now indicated that it has sent over R620 million in unpaid fees to its Violations Processing Centre.
The CFO noted that some motorists may still have 30-days to pay with a 50% discount, adding that road users have had more than enough time to pay up.
“One gantry too far”
According to JPSA head, Howard Dembovsky, these claims made by Sanral are more attempts at scaremongering, off the back of the new information from Parliament regarding Sanral’s finances.
“Clearly whoever made this threat must have come to the realisation that previous threats of criminal records and credit blacklisting – based on an Act that exempts itself from the National Credit Act – have had a limited effect,” Dembovsky said.
“It also appears that someone at Sanral has decided to dispense with the ‘troublesome formality’ of conducting trials, and now feels that they can jump straight to sentencing people to jail time.”
Dembosky previously debunked and dismissed Sanral’s jail time threats as nothing more than scare tactics and fear mongering, with no legal precedent on the matter yet set by the NPA.
Dembovsky said that, this time, Sanral has gone “one gantry too far” and overplayed its hand with the threats, having thus far proven themselves to be “engaging in intimidation and extortion tactics on public platforms”.
“Instead of managing to scare more people into compliance, they will simply strengthen the resolve of e-toll dissidents to resist.”
The JPSA head pointed out that “there is absolutely no way” that the courts would willingly dismantle the Gauteng economy by jailing hundreds of thousands of economically active citizens, “even if they could manage the volumes”.
More on e-tolls
E-toll fines, jail time and criminal records: the truth
The massive cost to collect e-toll debt
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