E-tolls a vulgar business: JPSA
Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) chairman Howard Dembovsky says that setting up Sanral as a business and providing it with customers who are “legally” obliged to pay, is vulgar, and smacks of corruption.
The statement follows a Talk Radio 702 interview with Sanral spokesman, Vusi Mona on Thursday (15 May), in which Mona discussed the recent extension for discounted e-toll payments.
During the interview Mona responded to claims by the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) that the move was simply a “carrot” to coerce road users to pay because toll collection has been low.
Mona noted that Outa has a strong anti-e-toll attitude and “disrespect for the rule of law”, adding that, “as Sanral, our toll portfolio is a business and we cannot sit back if we are not collecting…”
According to Dembovsky, this positioning from Sanral is telling, with the JPSA chairman saying that “legislating companies into business and providing them with a ‘legally’ captive customer base in doing so, is vulgar and smacks of corruption”.
“Anyone who cannot see this, is either blind or involved in it and offering bribes to motorists to come forward and register is just another manifestation of this,” he said.
“There have been repeated calls for a referendum on e-tolls versus a dedicated, Gauteng-specific fuel levy and, despite repeated claims of e-tolls having been democratically implemented; government has simply ignored these calls,” Dembovsky said.
Numbers a mess
Looking at the figures covered by Mona, Dembovsky said that, amongst other things, it was revealed that 700,000 people are paying e-tolls.
Mona further qualified this by saying that over a million people are registered and, in amongst those, were people who are exempt from paying.
“Mona and Sanral have repeatedly held that over 1.2 million users are registered for e-tolls,” Dembovsky said.
“They have also stated that between 30,000 and 45,000 new registrations are taking place each week; however the 1.2 million figure has not grown since they started uttering this in February 2014.”
Additionally, if the registered users total 1.2 million, then Dembovsky said it is fair to say that 500,000 of those users are in fact exempt from paying e-tolls based on the information Mona revealed on Thursday.
“This is the first time that we have heard any mention whatsoever of the quantum of exempt users under e-tolling and it is somewhat disingenuous of Sanral to claim that there are 1.2 million registered users when in fact, by Vusi Mona’s assertion, there are actually only 700,000 who are [actually] paying,” Dembovsky said.
He said that this revelation also demonstrates that it is not accurate for Sanral to claim that 48% of the 2.5 million vehicles that allegedly use the Gauteng freeways are paying e-tolls.
If only 700,000 are paying, then that means the percentage is actually 28%.
“The situation of the ‘user pays principle’ was bad enough when we were misled to believe that 48% were paying,” Dembovsky said.
“In reality, Mona’s statements have highlighted that e-tolling is simply a ‘some users pay principle’ and nothing more,” he said.
More on e-tolls
Sanral satisfied with 9% e-toll collection
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