Sanral fuel levy logic is “plain stupid”
The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) has pointed to “extraordinary incoherence” by Sanral spokesperson, Vusi Mona, in trying to justify e-tolling as a better source of revenue than a national fuel levy.
The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has been campaigning in both KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape to try to rationalize it’s tolling ambitions.
“Mr Mona’s arguments about the supposed ‘unfairness’ of using the fuel levy fund for road construction reveals a great deal more than Mr Mona intended,” said Outa chair Wayne Duvenage.
“He clearly does not understand fiscal budgeting and long term financial planning.”
“In Mr Mona’s attempt to talk down the fuel levy as a funding mechanism for road infrastructure he was quoted as saying that about R42 billion was collected (annually) by the Treasury from the fuel levy nationally,” Duvenage said.
“Sanral receives an allocation from that.”
The chair noted that while that is indeed so, Mona said that ‘because the GFIP (Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project) cost R20 billion, it would be unfair to the rest of the country for 50% of fuel levy to be spent on Gauteng.
“No-one has ever said or expects that the entire cost of the GFIP should be paid for in a single year. The loan amount needs only to be paid off over a twenty year period, which works out at R1.9 billion per annum (including interest) which is less than 5% of the annual income from the fuel levy,” Duvenage said.
“Why has his boss not explained to Mr Mona that bonds for capital infrastructure development are not the same as borrowing money to pay for annual school fees,” he said.
Outa also scoffed at claims from Sanral that revenue from designated fuel levies were now declining worldwide because of improved engine technology and fuel efficiency.
“What extraordinary logic is that? While the quality of engine technology may be improving, the ever increasing quantity of motor vehicles using the roads continues to push the fuel levy yield up,” said John Clarke, Outa spokesperson.
“Moreover, in the past three years since the completion of the GFIP, Treasury has increased the fuel levy by 31% to R2.34 per litre, thereby accumulating another R12 billion per annum into government coffers, enough to effectively finance five new Freeway Improvement Projects of R20 billion each, without the need for added costs of e-toll collections,” Clarke said.
“Sanral is not helping to advance the policy debate by such ridiculous arguments. To call them ‘simplistic’ is too dignifying. They are just plain stupid.”
“The best that can be said of Mr Alli’s utterances in Durban last week and Mr Mona’s claims made in Cape Town this week is that Sanral have helped do what Outa was planning to do anyway – alert KZN and W Cape residents to the national implications of the Gauteng e-tolling,” Clarke said.
Extend e-tolling
Outa said it has recently received information from a reliable confidential source close to the system confirming speculation that Sanral’s ambition was always to extend e-tolling throughout the country.
“We have learned that the Midrand Central Operations Centre was planned and built to cater for thousands of kilometres of roads, not just the 187 km’s of the GFIP, and now ranks as the second largest storage array in the Southern Hemisphere” said Clarke.
Clarke argued that this would contradict Advocate Jeremy Gauntlett’s recent argument in the Cape High Court that “the type of e-tolling facilitated by the collection method envisaged by the amendment bill is, and remains, highly unusual. It is only appropriate in very confined circumstances”.
“Mr Alli (Sanral CEO) has yet to explain the contradiction between what his counsel argued in court and the clear intention to take e-tolling way beyond the confines of Gauteng,” said Clarke.
More on Sanral and e-tolls
E-tolls must be debated provincially: Outa
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