{"id":541858,"date":"2021-11-26T11:20:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-26T09:20:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=541858"},"modified":"2021-11-26T11:20:53","modified_gmt":"2021-11-26T09:20:53","slug":"you-are-going-to-pay-for-e-tolls-whether-they-are-scrapped-or-not-minister","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/541858\/you-are-going-to-pay-for-e-tolls-whether-they-are-scrapped-or-not-minister\/","title":{"rendered":"You are going to pay for e-tolls whether they are scrapped or not: minister"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Finance minister Enoch Godogwana will make an announcement on the future of e-tolls in his February 2022 budget, says transport minister Fikile Mbalula.<\/p>\n<p>In an address on Friday (26 November), Mbalula said that a decision on the controversial tolling scheme has been delayed due to an inability to finalise consultations between his department and Treasury, and Cabinet.<\/p>\n<p>He explained that irrespective of what decision the government takes on e-tolls &#8211; including whether to scrap or keep the scheme &#8211; there would be a financial cost involved.<\/p>\n<p>Mbalula pointed to recent discussions with the government&#8217;s creditors who have made it clear that e-tolls will need to paid for in some form. Whether e-tolls are kept in place or scrapped, they need to be paid for all the same, and a decision has to be taken, he said.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"YouTube video player\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xinyeWLu5_8\" width=\"640\" height=\"430\" frameborder=\"0\" allowfullscreen=\"allowfullscreen\"><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>Heavy burden<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The South African National Roads Agency&#8217;s (Sanral&#8217;s) financial results published in October 2021 show that the Covid-19 lockdown had a significant impact on toll revenue, with a budgeted loss of R570 million between 1 April 2020 and 31 March 2021.<\/p>\n<p>Notably, Sanral said that the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) showed a revenue downturn of 31.5%.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;This project is the only Sanral toll route that receives a government grant to offset the discounts on tariffs instituted in response to public opposition to tolling on Gauteng freeways,&#8221; it said.<\/p>\n<p>In 2020\/21, this grant amounted to more than R2.7 billion, which includes R2.3 billion that the minister of transport, as Sanral\u2019s sole shareholder, approved as a transfer from non-toll to toll operations to reduce the expected shortfall in collection of revenue, the group said.<\/p>\n<p>Sanral\u2019s chief executive Skhumbuzo Macozoma has repeatedly called on the government to make a decision on e-tolls.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cBite the bullet and do so. There is not going to be an answer that is not going to affect South Africans in the pocket, including cancellation.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Cancellation, in fact, is the most expensive of the options that are on the table. So it\u2019s a complex decision, but it must be made. It\u2019s not assisting that we (Sanral) don\u2019t have a decision,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<hr \/>\n<p><strong>Read: <a href=\"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/motoring\/540942\/ford-reveals-new-and-very-different-looking-ranger\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Ford reveals new, and very different looking Ranger<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Finance minister Enoch Godogwana will make an announcement on the future of e-tolls in his February 2022 budget, says Transport minister Fikile Mbalula.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":70473,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[26],"class_list":["post-541858","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-headline"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541858","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=541858"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541858\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":541898,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/541858\/revisions\/541898"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/70473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=541858"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=541858"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=541858"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}