{"id":263837,"date":"2018-08-08T08:51:13","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T06:51:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=263837"},"modified":"2018-08-08T08:51:13","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T06:51:13","slug":"anc-being-vague-and-non-committal-over-the-scrapping-of-e-tolls","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/263837\/anc-being-vague-and-non-committal-over-the-scrapping-of-e-tolls\/","title":{"rendered":"ANC being vague and non-committal over the scrapping of e-tolls"},"content":{"rendered":"

At the end of July,\u00a0the African National Congress (ANC) confirmed<\/a> <\/strong>that it was actively taking steps to review the controversial e-toll system.<\/p>\n

Newly elected deputy chairperson of the ANC in Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, said that following recent conference talks the Gauteng ANC planned to publish a formal stance on the termination of e-tolls sometime in August 2018.<\/p>\n

However, in his interview with Talk Radio\u00a0702\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>Karima Brown,\u00a0Lesufi avoided the question of\u00a0how Gauteng\u2019s roads will be funded and maintained going forward, instead stating that the province first needs to \u2018let go\u2019 of the current system.<\/p>\n

This has lead to a number of parties claiming that the announcement to scrap e-tolls was instead electioneering – with the ANC using the controversial tolling system as a means of swaying sentiment in their favour ahead of the 2019 national elections.<\/p>\n

This issue was compounded by Gauteng premier David Makhura, who unsuccessfully tried to explain to the provincial legislature on Monday (6 August) when the controversial system would be scrapped.<\/p>\n

According to TimesLive<\/a><\/strong>, DA provincial leader John Moody asked Makhura when the gantries on Gauteng highways will be switched off and if those who have paid their e-toll bills will be refunded.<\/p>\n

In his reply, Makhura said the matter is with national government and the ANC in the province would continue its campaigns for the scrapping of e-tolling.<\/p>\n

“The e-toll matter has now been referred to national government. The president was there when we made call that e-tolls in this province must be scrapped. We made that point at the ANC conference. We did not say the e-tolls are scrapped. The issue of e-tolls is at national government, which is now responsible for this matter,” he said.<\/p>\n

Makhura said that the ANC will lead marches and campaigns against the ANC-led government on the issue.<\/p>\n

“We as the ANC are going lead a campaign (against e-tolls). There is no contradiction between the ANC taking up national government. There is no contradiction in that. We have been doing that all the time, I will lead the march to the Union Buildings.<\/p>\n

“It will not be the first march to the Union Buildings. We are going to continue to lead in ensuring that the e-tolls become a matter of yesterday,” Makhura said.<\/p>\n

New laws<\/strong><\/p>\n

While e-tolls are yet to officially be ‘scrapped’, their failure as a revenue collection method and unpopular status means that government is already taking steps to prevent a similar situation from occurring again.<\/p>\n

At the end of 2017, the\u00a0South African National Roads Agency Limited and National Roads\u00a0Amendment Bill<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was proposed – ‘aimed at amending previous road Acts to address the public outcry which arose as a result of the implementation of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project’.<\/p>\n

The bill, which is currently being considered by the National Assembly,<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0wants to place further checks and balances on the declaration of a toll road and ensure that the general public is not further financially burdened by making an alternative and affordable route available.<\/p>\n

“Because the manner in which the public consultation process was conducted on this project was not to the satisfaction of the public, there is a need to strengthen consultation with the Premier of a province and the municipal Council wherein the road to be tolled lies, by requiring a majority vote in favour of the proposed declaration in the relevant provincial legislature,” the drafters of the bill said.<\/p>\n

When a new toll is proposed in a province, the premier must give 30 days for objections after the consultation process. They must also call for a referendum if objections break the threshold of 55% and above.<\/p>\n

How this proposed legislation will fit in with other e-toll plans, as well as any possible e-toll alternatives, remains to be seen.<\/p>\n

\n

Read:\u00a0ANC wants to scrap e-tolls: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

At the end of July,\u00a0the ANC confirmed that it was actively taking steps to review the controversial e-toll system – but is yet to commit to anything.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":70473,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-263837","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\/263837","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=263837"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":263875,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/263837\/revisions\/263875"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=263837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=263837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=263837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}