{"id":13097,"date":"2012-05-21T16:33:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-21T14:33:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=13097"},"modified":"2012-05-22T12:24:23","modified_gmt":"2012-05-22T10:24:23","slug":"e-toll-saga-anc-taking-suggestions-on-resolution","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/13097\/e-toll-saga-anc-taking-suggestions-on-resolution\/","title":{"rendered":"E-toll saga: ANC taking suggestions on resolution"},"content":{"rendered":"

The ANC<\/a> will consider any suggestions on how the Gauteng e-tolls saga can be resolved in a way that the country can still meet its debt obligations.<\/p>\n

“We will look into any options that are given and assess the merits of any option,” party secretary-general Gwede Mantashe told reporters in Johannesburg.<\/p>\n

The expected May 1 launch date for e-tolling was canned last month at the end of an extended campaign of private and union federation resistance.<\/p>\n

Mantashe said — in addition to meeting the Congress of SA Trade Unions<\/a> — the ANC had engaged widely on the e-tolls.<\/p>\n

It also spoke to representatives of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance<\/a> who had challenged the introduction of e-tolling in court.<\/p>\n

Parties that met agreed the Gauteng Highway Improvement Project<\/a> had delivered good roads and related infrastructure, that debt (of about R20 billion) had been incurred, and that the government had a responsibility to service the bond.<\/p>\n

Mantashe said the fight was not about those issues. It was about whether e-tolling was the best option and, “it is about the service provider”.<\/p>\n

A petrol levy had been considered, but that meant every car owner in the country had to subsidise a road in Gauteng, even if they lived in the Eastern Cape.<\/p>\n

“And the question that we are grappling with, is that a fair option…,” said Mantashe.<\/p>\n

He asked whether it was fair that the fiscus should “continue throwing” a huge portion of its revenue to one province while others who were lagging behind with infrastructure had to be patient.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, options to service the bond had to be found, he said.<\/p>\n

Last month, the High Court in Pretoria put e-tolling in Gauteng on hold, ruling that the SA National Roads Agency Limited could not charge or collect e-tolls until there had been a judicial review of the processes leading up to them.<\/p>\n

Last week it was announced that Cabinet would appeal the judgment in court.<\/p>\n

Sanral<\/a> CEO Nazir Alli<\/a> has resigned since the judgment.<\/p>\n

On April 26 the transport department said the introduction of e-tolling would be delayed for a month after the ANC and Cosatu asked for this.<\/p>\n

On April 28, the High Court in Pretoria put the whole project on hold.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The ANC will consider any suggestions on how the Gauteng e-tolls saga can be resolved in a way that the country can still meet its debt obligations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":10168,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[25,1875,427,429],"class_list":["post-13097","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-active","tag-anc","tag-e-toll","tag-sanral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097","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=13097"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13099,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13097\/revisions\/13099"}],"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=13097"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13097"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13097"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}