The moment South Africa’s E-Tolls were gone for good
After years of legal battles, the E-Toll programme in Gauteng was shut down in 2024, but the man behind its removal said the system was doomed long before this.
The E-Toll system was introduced across Gauteng’s freeways to finance road upgrades after the routes were declared toll roads in 2008.
While plans for E-Tolls began in the late 2000s, public outcry emerged in 2010, when construction of the toll system’s infrastructure began.
The system used large metal gantries stretched across parts of Gauteng’s highways, which are still found there today.
As civil sectors began to push back against the South African National Roads Agency (SANRAL), one man led the charge against E-Tolls.
Wayne Duvenage was the CEO of Avis, but left his executive position in 2012 to found the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA), known today as the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse.
The organisation was founded to oppose the government on E-Tolls and took both SANRAL and the National Treasury to court in 2012.
The legal action was intended to prevent the new tolling system from going online, but the Supreme Court ultimately ruled against OUTA, paving the way for it to launch in 2013.
In 2013, the Supreme Court again ruled against OUTA in its main legal challenge, but the ruling included an important point – members of the public could introduce defensive challenges.
This meant that if a person was summoned for non-payment of E-Tolls, they could challenge the decision in court.
This laid the foundation for OUTA’s next few years of legal battles against SANRAL, as the group represented members of the public who did not pay for E-Tolls and encouraged people not to comply with the system.
According to OUTA, the E-Toll system peaked at a 40% compliance rate in 2014, amid threats of criminal prosecution and the withholding of vehicle license renewals.
After 2014, compliance dropped to roughly 20% by 2019, meaning the system was only earning between R55 million and R70 million per month, according to OUTA.
The first sign of the end
Following years of pressure, low compliance rates, and continued legal battles, SANRAL took the E-Toll system offline on 11 April 2024.
While this was the date when E-Tolls officially went offline, Duvenage recently told Newsday that the system was finished long before this.
He said the moment he knew that E-Tolls were coming to an end was when Gauteng’s government called for an economic impact assessment of E-Tolls in 2014.
The assessment allowed several businesses and communities to voice their opinions about the system and its impact on them.
“98% of the entities that gave input… were opposed to E-Tolls and explained why it was going to negatively impact them,” Duvenage said.
The assessment had two key findings: Firstly, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project had benefited the provincial economy, and secondly, the E-Toll system was unaffordable and inequitable.
“In its current form, the e-Toll system is unaffordable and inequitable and places a disproportionate burden on low and middle-income households. It is also administratively too cumbersome,” SA News said.
The report recommended that parts of the E-Toll system should be reviewed based on the roughly 50 recommendations made by the advisory panel.
Following the report, Duvenage said that sentiment shifted in their favour, and OUTA continued to encourage people not to comply with the system.
He said compliance peaked around this time at 40%, but never rose above it as people began to believe that E-Tolls would not last.
The next big win for OUTA came in 2019, when SANRAL announced it would no longer issue summonses to people who did not settle their E-Toll debts.
Duvenage said he believed this decision was due to South Africa’s 2019 elections quickly approaching, and that the government did not want to continue fighting its citizens.
“That day in March 2019 was the deathblow,” he said. “The fact that they took the next five years to switch the system off in April 2024 was just typical government inability to introduce decisions they make.”
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