We won’t pay e-tolls: Taxi council

·14 Apr 2014

Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) has welcomed a move by the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) to boycott the Gauteng e-tolling system.

Last week (10 April), Santaco vowed to boycott the Gauteng e-tolling system until taxis in the province got exempt status for the system.

Sanral and cabinet took a decision to allow public transport to be exempt from the e-tolling system, provided they registered as such.

A special task team was set up to speed up the process of registering taxis as public transport. This process was finalised by January 2014, with less than half of the 63,000 taxis in Gauteng obtaining an operating licence.

“The bulk of applications were rejected because of failure of operators to submit outstanding supporting documentations,” department of transport spokesperson, Octavia Mamabolo told Times Live.

Santaco president, Phillip Taaibosch was quoted as saying that as long as taxi operators are getting billed, no single taxi operator will pay e-tolls.

“What we are going to do is to engage with government,” he said.

Onerus system

Outa chairman, Wayne Duvenage, welcomed the move by Santaco, saying that the situation was a clear indication of the stunted and burdensome administration processes involved with e-tolling.

“This is just another of many examples pointing to the onerous administration conditions of e-tolling, which adds to the unworkability of this irrational plan,” Outa said.

“There is simply far too much burden in the cumbersome e-toll system which adds to the high costs of administration, making it more irrational than initially envisaged,” Duvenage said.

“Santaco’s call for a boycott of e-tolls last week is the most logical approach for them to take.”

According to Outa, Santaco has now joined well over a million other freeway users who have not purchased e-tags and who have ignored the e-tolling system.