{"id":165031,"date":"2017-03-17T09:54:15","date_gmt":"2017-03-17T07:54:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=165031"},"modified":"2017-03-17T10:05:03","modified_gmt":"2017-03-17T08:05:03","slug":"court-grants-first-judgement-against-motorist-for-not-paying-e-tolls-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/165031\/court-grants-first-judgement-against-motorist-for-not-paying-e-tolls-report\/","title":{"rendered":"‘First’ e-toll ruling means very little for motorists: JPSA"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Pretoria High Court has handed down the\u00a0first judgement for failing to pay outstanding e-tolls, giving the sheriff the right to\u00a0to seize property and sell it to raise the funds\u00a0for the outstanding amount, according to a report by Moneyweb<\/a><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

According to the report, the court granted the default judgement\u00a0against an Alberton-based company in January on the grounds that the debtor\u00a0had an outstanding toll amount of R436,407.57. The court further\u00a0ordered to pay interest at the rate of 10.25% as well as the relevant sheriff\u2019s fees.<\/p>\n

According to the head of Justice Project South Africa, Howard Dembovsky, the ruling means very little for motorists outside demonstrating that if you simply ignore a civil summons for \u201cdebt\u201d<\/i>, a default judgment is likely.<\/p>\n

The ruling is also unlikely to impact the ‘test e-toll case’ currently being formulated by civil action group Outa, Demobovsky said.<\/p>\n

“My advice to motorists is what it has always been. If you aren\u2019t paying e-tolls and receive a summons \u2013 defend it<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n

“The fact is that if one does not defend any civil claim for debt, whether it be for e-tolls or anything else, a default judgment will most likely result. There is nothing ‘precedent setting’ about that.”<\/p>\n

Dembovsky said that it is important to note that the company concerned in this judgment is apparently under voluntary liquidation.<\/p>\n

“It is therefore hardly surprising that it didn\u2019t defend the matter since doing so would have cost them money they obviously don\u2019t have. The decision to enter into voluntary liquidation is generally reached after considerable thought has been given to the financial position of a business and is seldom done lightly.”<\/p>\n

“However no-one wakes up one morning and says to themselves ‘let\u2019s wind up our successful and profitable business’. ”<\/p>\n

The JPSA head said that\u00a0Sanral for got a judgment against an entity that didn\u2019t even defend the matter.<\/p>\n

“One down\u00a0– around 3 million to go.”<\/p>\n

Despite indications that Sanral is\u00a0finally making good on its threats\u00a0to collect on outstanding e-toll amounts, Gauteng premier David Makhura admitted the failing of the toll system in his 20 February State of the Province address.<\/p>\n

He further promised that there there would be no new e-tolls on Gauteng roads.<\/p>\n

This failure was echoed by statistics published by lobby group OUTA who noted that as of the end of 2016, there was currently R6.3 billion in outstanding tolls.<\/p>\n

Outa chairman Wayne Duvenhage noted that currently only one in five users pay for e-tolls, with 2.9 million motorists “in debt”.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0Sanral quietly hikes e-toll prices \u2013 here\u2019s how much more you will be paying<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A high court judgement for ‘failing to pay outstanding e-tolls’ means very little for motorists, as it was a default ruling on a matter that was not defended by the liquidated company, Justice Project South Africa says.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":110153,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-165031","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165031","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\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165031"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165031\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":165085,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165031\/revisions\/165085"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/110153"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165031"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165031"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165031"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}