E-tolls an unfinished business
With the launch date for Gauteng’s controversial e-tolling system looming large (April, 30, 2012), parties on both sides of the contested system are coming to a head.
The R20-billion South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) project was imposed as a means pay for the upkeep of roads in Gauteng, and reduce congestion.
About 185km of Gauteng’s road network has been or is busy being upgraded, and the e-tolling side of the overhaul will see motorists billed electronically when using the province’s N1 highway.
Drivers have been encouraged to register an e-tag which monitors the amount of times they pass a specific gantry on the highway, and charge the road user accordingly. As an incentive to get tagged, SANRAL offers a discounted rate.
Cars without e-tags will have their licence plates monitored and billed for their journeys, and will have to pay a much higher fee.
The cost
E-tag users: communters who have signed up and registered an e-tag with SANRAL will benefit from paying a discounted fee of approximately 30c per kilometer.
If e-tag users are heavy users, they qualify to pay a capped fee of R550 per month for using Gauteng’s roads.
Non-e-tag users: commuters who do not register for an e-tag, but are licensed and registered with SANRAL, will pay a non-discounted fee of approximately 58c per kilometer.
Non-e-tag users do not qualify for the capped monthly fee, and will pay the full usage price.
‘Alternative’ user: The latest revelation in the toll road fees was the exposition of an “alternative user” fee of R1.75c per kilometer – three times more than an untagged vehicle would pay.
A user is classified as ‘alternative’ if they do not have an e-tag and are not registered with SANRAL.
“Users who do not register, or who do not have valid and operational e-tags and who do not pay within seven days will ultimately pay a significantly higher tariff,” SANRAL said in a statement.
The agency cited costs associated with recovering payment, including invoicing and debt collection, as reasons for the fee.
Taxis and busses are exempt from the tolls meaning, by the National Treasury’s own admission, that “higher income users will account for over 95 percent of toll revenue,” it said.
The opposition
Many companies and industry bodies and organisations have come out strongly against SANRAL’s implementation of the e-toll system.
Industries and consumer bodies that operate in and around Johannesburg and in the center of the e-toll areas, came together to form OUTA – Opposition To Urban Tolling Alliance – which has brought a disrupting court interdict against SANRAL to put the implementation of the tolls on hold.
Additionally, South Africa’s largest worker union, COSATU, has also rallied support from its members with the intention of staging the “mother of all protests” from April 23, to put an end to the tolls.
These would lead to a “national stay-away or socio-economic strike” on April 30, the union said.
Business Unity South Africa (BUSA) and the South African Chamber of Commerce have called for a delay to the tolling, while Afrikaner lobby group, AfriForum has started preparing its own court processes to stop the launch.
The Democratic Alliance has also brought a complaint before the National Consumer Commission regarding the tolls.
Ready or not, here we come
The South African Treasury is the latest player to throw it’s weight behind the e-tolling system.
Treasury has applied to intervene in the case brought by OUTA against the e-tolls, which is to be heard in the Pretoria High Court this week.
“There would be serious negative implications for future financing of roads and investment in public transport, were SANRAL to be interdicted from implementing the toll collection system,” Treasury said in a statement today (23 April 2012).
Government has expressed the inevitability of the tolling system which, it says, will assist government to obtain revenue that will be utilised in order to improve the road infrastructure and service debt already incurred for the upgraded freeway network in Gauteng.
According to Sanral there are as many as 500,000 e-tags currently registered. Gauteng has approximately 4 million vehicles driving around its streets.
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