Gauteng e-toll review coming
Speaking at the State of the Province address for Gauteng, the province’s Premier, David Makhura, announced that a panel will be set up to review e-tolling in the province.
According to IOL, this would be done in consultation with national government, municipalities and all sectors of the society.
“While we shall not promise easy solutions and claim easy victories, we must make it clear we cannot close our eyes to the cries of the sectors of our population who are affected by the cost of travelling across the province,” IOL quoted Makhura as saying.
Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) says it is “cautiously optimistic” about the move to open discussions about e-tolls, calling it possibly the “first real platform for dialogue on the matter”.
“We do so with a degree of ‘cautious optimism’, due to the fact that this is not the first time that such a panel has been established,” JPSA head Howard Dembovsky said in a statement.
“The last time this was done through the inter-ministerial committee, absolutely no blind notice was taken of any inputs civil society tried to make.”
JPSA noted that, while the panel was to be established, there has been no announcement as to when it will be established or how long it would take to find the “lasting solutions” it seeks.
JPSA also said that, while it is not opposed to true dialogue finally being opened up, it remained perplexed as to why tax-payers’ money needed to be wasted on yet another “panel of enquiry”.
“The most obvious and ‘lasting solution’ is to scrap urban tolling (e-tolls) entirely now – before the non-payment thereof creates an even bigger mess than it has already – and to implement an efficient, ring-fenced and financially inexpensive provincial fuel levy,” the group said.
Howard Dembovsky
Panic and speculation
The JPSA also called for e-toll branded vehicles to be excluded from “the daily, prolific roadblocks” being set up around Gauteng.
The presence of e-toll branded vehicles at these roadblocks “do nothing to allay the fears of motorists that they will be intimidated at gunpoint to buckle under the pressure,” JPSA said.
“In our view, these roadblocks should be halted immediately, or at the very least have the Sanral e-tolls branded vehicles excluded from them as they are causing unwarranted panic and speculation.”
Sanral spokesman, Vusi Mona has reiterated and maintained that the road agency has not requested any law enforcement agency to question road users about e-tolls, despite claims from Gauteng motorists which suggest otherwise.
“Sanral has no mandate to do “on road enforcements and road blocks,” spokesperson, Vusi Mona told BusinessTech.
He said that an e-tag simply enables the road user access to various discounts and the ease of payment. These benefits cannot be forced upon road users.
“Sanral has definitely not requested any law enforcement agency to question road users whether they have e-tags or not,” he said.
“Sanral is confident that none of its personnel has even done so. And we are assured by the Gauteng Department of Community Safety (GDCS) that none of its officers have been instructed to do so. When the GDCS does road blocks, Sanral assists it with equipment and access to data,” he said.
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