Gauteng motorists will have to get accustomed to paying for the use of the highways as e-tolling could not be undone, the High Court in Pretoria heard on Tuesday (27 November).<\/p>\n
“Tolling can’t be undone,” said lawyer David Unterhalter, for the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral).<\/p>\n
“People drive on the upgraded roads everyday. We are going to fund it through tolls — it has been decided.”<\/p>\n
He said it was impossible to “go back to the drawing board” as Mike Maritz, for the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa), suggested on Monday while making his submissions.<\/p>\n
Unterhalter said Gauteng motorists benefited from Sanral’s Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) and therefore should pay for the upgrades.<\/p>\n
He said that all the relevant civil society organisations representing Gauteng motorists knew about e-tolling and the user-pay principle since it started in 2008, but did nothing until the tariffs were announced in 2011.<\/p>\n
“Civil society knew what was happening and informed their members. It is perfectly clear they knew what was at stake,” said Unterhalter.<\/p>\n
“[They] stood by for years as construction took place… No one was lulled into some sense of security. They could see the upgrades.”<\/p>\n
The Constitutional Court has overturned an interim order that e-tolling of Gauteng freeways be put on hold.<\/p>\n
However, the High Court is still hearing a full review of e-tolling. It ordered on April 28 this had to be done before e-tolling could be introduced.<\/p>\n
Unterhalter said Sanral undertook a huge risk to upgrade the highways.<\/p>\n
“It causes the financial standing of my client to be scrutinised by potential investors,” Unterhalter said.<\/p>\n
“This is not just prejudice to Sanral but to South Africans as a whole, because they are beneficiaries of the upgrade.”<\/p>\n
Unterhalter said that the proposed difficulties with collecting the money was not a matter of concern, and said there were ways to collect the money, because the owner of the vehicle would be held liable.<\/p>\n
The collection costs were not low but were manageable, he said.<\/p>\n
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