{"id":10999,"date":"2012-04-26T12:53:12","date_gmt":"2012-04-26T10:53:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=10999"},"modified":"2012-04-26T14:06:12","modified_gmt":"2012-04-26T12:06:12","slug":"e-tolling-is-a-rational-decision-sanral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/10999\/e-tolling-is-a-rational-decision-sanral\/","title":{"rendered":"E-tolling is a rational decision: SANRAL"},"content":{"rendered":"

The decision to toll Gauteng’s highways was based on a complex situation, and was completely rational, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Thursday.<\/p>\n

“When the applicants – Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa)<\/a> – say it would cost R20 billion over 20 years for the e-toll project, they have only looked at a piece of a puzzle and made an assessment,” lawyer for the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral)<\/a>, David Unterhalter, said.<\/p>\n

When people used any public facility, like the roads, they always had to pay for them “one way or another”.<\/p>\n

Judge Bill Prinsloo was hearing responding arguments from Sanral against Outa’s application for an urgent interdict delaying the start of tolling.<\/p>\n

Attending Thursday’s court proceedings was Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Unterhalter said the effect of the interdict would be felt for several years afterwards.<\/p>\n

“The interdict is like asking a shop owner to close its doors for a few months. The damage is done in months, but will take years to rehabilitate. Just look at Greece.”<\/p>\n

He said the interdict would impact on Sanral’s ability to pay its creditors, which would affect South Africa’s credit rating.<\/p>\n

Outa’s lawyer Alistair Franklin said the interdict would not be “catastrophic” for Sanral.<\/p>\n

“There would be no lost income if it [the e-toll system] is delayed for two to three months.”<\/p>\n

Franklin said if Sanral was at risk of defaulting on its debt, the Treasury would take over.<\/p>\n

“They have also not explained why the delay from the interdict would have different consequences from the previous four postponements.”<\/p>\n

The court was expected to make a decision on the matter on Thursday, as tolling was scheduled to start on Monday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The decision to toll Gauteng’s highways was based on a complex situation, and was completely rational, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Thursday.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23,1],"tags":[25,2545,427,1988,429],"class_list":["post-10999","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","category-trending","tag-active","tag-court-battle","tag-e-toll","tag-outa","tag-sanral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10999","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10999"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10999\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11001,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10999\/revisions\/11001"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10168"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10999"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10999"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10999"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}