{"id":47821,"date":"2013-10-18T14:21:49","date_gmt":"2013-10-18T12:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=47821"},"modified":"2013-10-21T10:01:30","modified_gmt":"2013-10-21T08:01:30","slug":"we-may-not-scrap-e-tolls-completely-da","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/47821\/we-may-not-scrap-e-tolls-completely-da\/","title":{"rendered":"We may not scrap e-tolls completely: DA"},"content":{"rendered":"

Helen Zille<\/a>, leader of South Africa’s opposition political party, the\u00a0Democratic Alliance<\/a>, says that it may not be able to scrap the e-toll system should it come into power in Gauteng.<\/p>\n

However, Zille said that a DA run Gauteng would put a stop to further implementation of the controversial system.<\/p>\n

The proposed tariffs for e-tolling have been published in the Government Gazette and the public has 30 days to comment.\u00a0Transport Minister, Dipuo Peters<\/a>, has said that the system could be implemented before the end of the year.<\/p>\n

It follows the Supreme Court of Appeal’s dismissal of an appeal by Opposition To Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa<\/a>) to scrap the system in Gauteng.<\/p>\n

SABC News reported that\u00a0Zille made the comments at an event at the Johannesburg Country Club on Thursday (17 October).<\/p>\n

According to SABC News,\u00a0Zille\u00a0said: “We have said we will oppose e-tolls with everything we have got. We have been very careful not to say we will scrap e-tolls because when you inherit contracts done by a previous government you battle like hell to undo them.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Western Cape\u00a0Premier added:\u00a0\u201cWe have just had this big setback where we put this million rand into this Outa case. We’ve just had a big setback in the verdict on that.”<\/p>\n

The DA contributed R1 million to Outa\u2019s court action saying it “believed it was important to contest the principle of e-tolling”.<\/p>\n

Following Thursday’s statements, however, the Western Cape Premier posted a comment on social media site Twitter on Friday (18 October) standing firm in the party’s stance against the controversial system:<\/p>\n

\"Helen<\/a>

Helen Zille Tweet<\/p><\/div>\n

Mmusi Maimane<\/a>, the\u00a0DA Premier Candidate for Gauteng has been staunchly opposed to the system, actively\u00a0campaigning against its implementation in the province.<\/p>\n

“If elected Gauteng Premier, I pledge to do everything possible to stop e-tolling in its tracks,”\u00a0Maimane has said in a statement on Friday.<\/p>\n

“If I become Premier of Gauteng, I will do everything possible to get rid of e-tolling,” he has said before.<\/p>\n

The Gauteng lead said that the DA is currently receiving legal advice on next step to challenge e-tolling.<\/p>\n

“If the DA does bring a legal challenge before the election it is likely to be on different grounds to the Outa case.<\/p>\n

“However the DA\u2019s ability to fight tolls will primarily be as a party of government in Gauteng. That is why the surest way to defeat tolling is for South Africans to voice their opposition at the ballot box next year.<\/p>\n

“It has become very clear over the past few weeks that government has not revealed the true cost of e-tolling to the public. Reports in today\u2019s Times newspaper suggest that visitors to this province will also feel the impact of this system.<\/p>\n

“We encourage the citizens of this country to use the power of their vote to get rid of e-tolling in 2014,” the DA said on Friday (18 October).<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

More on e-tolls<\/h3>\n

E-toll courts proposal a \u201cslap in the face\u201d for SA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0E-toll: the hidden costs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Fight against e-tolls now up to people of Gauteng: DA<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Outa\u2019s e-toll case dismissed<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

DA lead, Helen Zille says that it may not be able to scrap the e-toll system completely, should it come into power in Gauteng.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":32575,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1329,1804,26,1569,5159,1988],"class_list":["post-47821","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-da","tag-e-tolls","tag-headline","tag-helen-zille","tag-mmusi-maimane","tag-outa"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47821","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=47821"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47924,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47821\/revisions\/47924"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}