Who’s paying for e-tolls?
The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) spokesperson Vusi Mona says that the agency is ahead of its projections regarding e-toll collections.
Mona told Talk Radio 702 that Sanral is ahead in collecting toll fees, saying that “we are not where we want to be, but we are collecting. We are ahead of our projections.”
“We have got over 700,000 people who are paying,” he said, adding that more than one million people are registered for the system.
He said that within that one million were those exempted users, including taxis and emergency vehicles.
In April, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters noted that Gauteng motorists had run up more than half a billion rand in overdue fees since the province’s e-tolling system started on December 3, 2013.
Less than 10% of this had been paid.
“I am informed that… as at March 1 [this year] an amount of R543,544,574 worth of invoices were transferred to the VPC [Violations Processing Centre],” she said in written reply to a parliamentary question.
Vusi Mona
In February, Mona said in a statement: “Sanral… is now sitting with more than 1.2 million e-tags that have been taken up.”
He claimed that between 30,000 and 45,000 people were registering on Sanral’s system each week.
Sanral also announced that it had earned R250.8 million from the system over the past 3 months, up to 28 February 2014.
Grace period
Earlier this week, the Department of Transport extended the grace period discount for e-toll invoices for the period 3 December 2013 to 28 February 2014, without the Alternate User Tariff being applied to these transactions.
“Under this extended post-grace period discount offer, motorists who register an e-toll account and then settle the outstanding invoices for the period 3 December 2013 to 28 February 2014, before July 1, 2014, will only be liable to pay the standard toll tariff for these transactions as opposed to the alternate user rate which is three times the standard toll tariff,” said Sanral CEO Nazir Alli.
The Minister of Transport Dipuo Peters decided to extend the post-grace period discounts for the specific period, without applying the alternative user tariff, especially in view of the fact that road users were still familiarising themselves with the new system and there were delays in the delivery of invoices due to the postal strike.
Mona said that Sanral was extending the grace period as some users may have unintentionally fallen into arrears due to unfamiliarity with the system.
He pointed out that that there was also a postal strike earlier this year, meaning that some road users may have received their invoices late.
“We cannot sit back if we are not collecting, and say we are not going to do anything about it. The consequences would be that we would have to go back to you as a tax payer and say you know what, you said we should collect, we have failed, can you bail us out.”
“That would be totally irresponsible,” Mona said.
More on Sanral and e-tolls
Sanral satisfied with 9% e-toll collection
Unpaid e-toll fees at R543 million
Loading ...