The Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) says that transport minister Dipuo Peters\u2019s answers to parliament on Wednesday (5 March 2014) about e-toll registrations contradict Sanral\u2019s numbers.<\/p>\n
In her answer to the question asked by DA MP, Ian Ollis, as to how many registrations had taken place to 1 February 2014, she stated that the number was 912,048 registrations as at 31 January 2014.<\/p>\n
49,987 of these e-toll registrations were for local, provincial and national government vehicles.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt must also be borne in mind that a significant proportion of these registrations must apply to vehicles exempted from paying e-tolls,\u201d the JPSA said.<\/p>\n
The number which Peters provided is significantly less that Sanral\u2019s claims of 1.2 million registered users on 28 February 2014.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is very difficult, if not impossible to believe that more than 287,952 new registrations would have taken place in the 28 days in February, especially in light of the fact that Sanral\u2019s repeated claims that around 35,000 registrations take place a week,\u201d said Howard Dembovsky, chairperson of JPSA.<\/p>\n
\u201cA figure of more than 10,000 registrations per day, every single day in the month of February, is simply too difficult to swallow, no matter how Sanral chooses to spin it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
Dembovsky added that the statement by Peters that between 23% and 28% of the daily users of Gauteng\u2019s e-roads have e-tags indicates that 72% don\u2019t. \u201cThis is most certainly not the impression that Sanral is portraying,\u201d said Dembovsky.<\/p>\n
\u201cAccording to Sanral\u2019s own ‘research’, around 2.5 million vehicles use the GFIP daily. This means that 1.8 million of them don\u2019t have e-tags,\u201d the JPSA said.<\/p>\n
\u201cSanral has not hesitated to label research conducted by OUTA as ‘unscientific’, but now it emerges that in fact, OUTA\u2019s research was anything but inaccurate.\u201d<\/p>\n
Dembovsky said that if Sanral is indeed getting paid \u201cmore than R300 million a month\u201d on e-tolls, as was claimed by Nazir Alli on Friday 28 February 2014, from up to 28% of their registered users and some of the unregistered users who may have paid, then Cosatu\u2019s view that the e-toll tariffs are way too high is true.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe time for Sanral to stop overtly lying to the public has long since passed, as has the time for them to face reality and understand that no matter how many times a lie is repeated, it remains a lie,\u201d said Dembovsky.<\/p>\n
E-toll bill \u201cunconstitutional\u201d: DA<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Sanral processing 3 million transactions daily<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Sanral addressing Zuma e-toll concerns<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n