{"id":268793,"date":"2018-08-31T13:30:03","date_gmt":"2018-08-31T11:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=268793"},"modified":"2018-08-31T13:30:03","modified_gmt":"2018-08-31T11:30:03","slug":"over-6000-e-toll-cases-still-heading-to-court-as-government-u-turns-on-scrapping-the-failed-system-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/government\/268793\/over-6000-e-toll-cases-still-heading-to-court-as-government-u-turns-on-scrapping-the-failed-system-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Over 6,000 e-toll cases still heading to court &#8211; as government u-turns on scrapping the failed system again"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Government has again indicated that the controversial and failed e-tolling system will not be scrapped &#8211; with transport minister Blade Nzimande saying it&#8217;s needed to pay over R67 billion in debt owed.<\/p>\n<p>This marks the latest in the state&#8217;s non-committal and vague position on the system, which has been fraught with low compliance rates and wide public backlash from motorists and public transport associations.<\/p>\n<p>At the end of July,\u00a0the African National Congress (ANC)\u00a0<strong><a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/260463\/its-final-e-tolls-will-be-scrapped-anc\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">confirmed<\/a>\u00a0<\/strong>that it was actively taking steps to review the controversial e-toll system, when deputy chairperson of the ANC in Gauteng, Panyaza Lesufi, said that the Gauteng ANC planned to publish a formal stance on the termination of e-tolls sometime in August 2018.<\/p>\n<p>However, in an interview with Talk Radio\u00a0<strong><a href=\"http:\/\/www.702.co.za\/articles\/312660\/listen-conference-has-taken-a-firm-decision-to-scrap-e-tolls-panyaza-lesufi\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">702\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<p>Now, speaking to SABC News, transport minister Blade Nzimande says that, while government hears and understands the public&#8217;s concerns over the system, there is no other way for the state to pay for and maintain the highways it has already built.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got another problem that many people don&#8217;t want to deal with &#8211; we owe an amount of R67 billion. That&#8217;s the amount we owe on the freeways. If you take away e-tolls now&#8230;how do you pay the R67 billion?&#8221; Nzimande said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/wX0WvjCK8a0\" width=\"640\" height=\"338\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>Civil action group, Outa, which has been against e-tolling since the outset in 2013, said that this stance was counter to Nzimande&#8217;s position in March, when he acknowledged that the scheme had failed.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;In March, minister Nzimande indicated that the \u2018disastrous e-tolls\u2019 scheme could no longer be dragged out and a solution needed to be considered by cabinet,&#8221; said Rudie Heyneke, Outa\u2019s transport portfolio manager.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Now the Minister is reluctant to pull the plug on the e-tolls scheme as he wants this to pay for R67 billion of roads built by Sanral.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Outa said that Nzimande &#8220;appears to be either confused or misinformed&#8221;, because the bonds obtained from the Public Investment Corporation for the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) amounted to R20 billion and the Gauteng e-tolls cannot be used to fund borrowing for other roads.<\/p>\n<p>On 29 November 2017, the former transport minister Joe Maswanganyi told Parliament that the debt was up to R48 billion, according to Hansard.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;How did this rocket by R19 billion to R67 billion in nine months?&#8221; Outa said.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sanral still pursuing cases against motorists<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Outa highlighted that with a compliance rate of 25%, any hopes of recouping anything close to R67 billion is lost, as the current revenues barely cover what it costs to collect the tolls in the first place.<\/p>\n<p>On top of that, the group said that the losses continue as Sanral continues to wage a legal war with Gauteng residents by issuing thousands of summonses against e-toll defaulters.<\/p>\n<p>According to Outa, on 17 August, the minister said in a written reply to Parliament (RNW2133) that Sanral was pursuing 6,071 cases in the magistrate\u2019s courts and high courts in relation to outstanding e-tolls. The legal costs were not specified.<\/p>\n<p>Outa said its lawyers are assisting in the defence of 1,028 of these cases.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/263837\/anc-being-vague-and-non-committal-over-the-scrapping-of-e-tolls\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">ANC being vague and non-committal over the scrapping of e-tolls<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Government has again indicated that the controversial and failed e-tolling system will not be scrapped &#8211; with transport minister Blade Nzimande saying it&#8217;s needed to pay over R67 billion in debt owed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":51823,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-268793","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-government","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268793","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=268793"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268793\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":268801,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268793\/revisions\/268801"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51823"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268793"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268793"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268793"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}