{"id":52201,"date":"2014-01-26T23:00:28","date_gmt":"2014-01-26T21:00:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=52201"},"modified":"2014-01-27T09:08:49","modified_gmt":"2014-01-27T07:08:49","slug":"shots-fired-in-fresh-e-toll-war","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/52201\/shots-fired-in-fresh-e-toll-war\/","title":{"rendered":"Sanral accused of collusion on e-tolls"},"content":{"rendered":"

Justice Project South Africa (NPC) has accused both, the National Consumer Commission and Sanral<\/a> of collusion, and making “an utter mockery of the laws of South Africa”.<\/p>\n

Howard Dembovsky<\/a>,\u00a0National chairman of the JPSA, noted that on\u00a0Friday 24 January 2014, the National Consumer Commission\u2019s head of Advocacy, Education and Awareness, Phumeza Mlungu stated that \u201cSanral\u2019s e-tolls terms and conditions are 90% compliant with the Consumer Protection Act\u201d and that \u201clegislative amendments will be required to bring them in line with the Act\u201d.<\/p>\n

These statements, Dembovsky said,\u00a0were made on SABC1, adding also that Mlungu pointed out\u00a0that the National Consumer Commission had received two complaints and four enquiries with respect to e-tolling since its launch on 3 December 2013.<\/p>\n

“Anything that is \u201c90% compliant\u201d is actually non-compliant and therefore violates the provisions of the Act,”\u00a0Dembovsky stressed.<\/p>\n

“There is a pertinent saying in law which holds \u201clet the buyer beware\u201d and anyone who assents to terms and conditions that violate their rights under the Consumer Protection Act is looking to have their rights violated with their own consent.”<\/p>\n

Dembovsky argued that for the NCC\u00a0to then state that \u201clegislative amendments will be required to bring Sanral\u2019s terms and conditions in line with the Act\u201d is an outright admission of collusion between the two State agencies and is furthermore an admission that the National Consumer Commission is not acting in the interests of consumers.<\/p>\n

The JPSA lead said that because\u00a0Mlungu did not specify which 10% of the Sanral e-tolling terms and conditions violate the Consumer Protection Act, it could not comment further on this.<\/p>\n

“If the National Consumer Commission is clearly prepared to turn a blind eye to the violation of its own legislation and thereby fail in its supposed mandate of protecting consumer rights, it is hardly surprising that so few people have complained to them,”\u00a0Dembovsky said.<\/p>\n

\"Howard<\/a>

Howard Dembovsky<\/p><\/div>\n

Notwithstanding the apparent violation of the Consumer Protection Act, the JPSA said that Sanral has also recently taken it upon itself to reduce the terms of payment whereupon a 60% discount applies on invoices paid within 30 days to terms of 17 days and less. The period of validity for discounts is legislated in the e-tolls tariff gazette of 19 November 2013.<\/p>\n

“Both the National Consumer Commission and Sanral have made an utter mockery of the laws of South Africa by their collusion and preparedness to violate the very laws they expect others to abide by,”\u00a0Dembovsky said.<\/p>\n

Sanral’s \u2018Stalinist\u2019 tendencies<\/strong><\/p>\n

Last week,\u00a0Opposition To Urban Tolling Alliance\u00a0(Outa<\/a>) said it had received over a thousand complaints from the public in three weeks.<\/p>\n

“Outa is often accused by Sanral of promoting \u2018defiance\u2019 and \u2018civil disobedience\u2019. In truth Sanral is practicing \u2018business disobedience\u2019 by expecting users of the freeways to pay without affording them the courtesy of normal invoicing and billing procedures, said John Clarke, spokesperson for Outa.<\/p>\n

\u201cSuch \u2018Stalinist\u2019 tendencies only serve to heighten confrontation and delegitimize the obligations of the road users in accordance with Sanral\u2019s rules and the laws they have managed to bring into being.”<\/p>\n

“Contractual obligations between parties in a business relationship need to be logical and reasonable. Government agencies who abuse their power, effectively cash in their authority and legitimacy and erode the rule of law whilst undermining social cohesion,\u201d said Clarke.<\/p>\n

\u00a0DA court case<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Democratic Alliance<\/a> says that its legal case against the\u00a0implementation\u00a0of e-tolls on Gauteng\u2019s freeways has been\u00a0set down for 4-5 March 2014.<\/p>\n

The DA submitted papers to the High Court in November 2013, arguing that\u00a0the legislation governing e-tolling was\u00a0incorrectly tagged and should be declared unconstitutional.<\/p>\n

\"DA<\/a>

DA E-tolls Billboard<\/p><\/div>\n

Sanral sorry<\/strong><\/p>\n

Sanral’s CEO Nazir Alli<\/a>\u00a0apologized\u00a0to Gauteng residents over for the groups faulty billing system, citing a\u00a0database issue, EWN news reported.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe databases that we have been relying on to be able to send you the notification, unfortunately those are the ones that have let us down in terms of the accuracy of the information. But within time we will fix it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alli, however, called on people to respect the law.\u00a0\u201cNow that the courts have pronounced on this thing, let\u2019s show some respect for our democracy and for the rule of law.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u00a0More on Sanral and e-tolls<\/h3>\n

DA e-toll court case looms<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Bizarre e-toll billing complaints<\/a><\/p>\n

Public protector called in e-toll billing mess<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

JPSA wrong says Sanral: e-toll non-payment is criminal<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n

Sanral and JPSA clash over e-tolls<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The JPSA has accused the NCC and Sanral of collusion, and making “an utter mockery of the laws of South Africa”.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":51652,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[1804,26,5279,7347,2219,429],"class_list":["post-52201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-e-tolls","tag-headline","tag-jpsa","tag-national-consumer-commission","tag-nazir-alli","tag-sanral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52201","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=52201"}],"version-history":[{"count":15,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":52225,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/52201\/revisions\/52225"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51652"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=52201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=52201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=52201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}