Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) chairman Howard Dembovsky says that setting up Sanral as a business and providing it with customers who are “legally” obliged to pay, is vulgar, and smacks of corruption.<\/p>\n
The statement follows a\u00a0Talk Radio 702 interview with Sanral spokesman, Vusi Mona on Thursday (15 May), in which Mona discussed the recent extension for discounted e-toll payments<\/a>.<\/p>\n During the interview Mona responded to claims by the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) that the move was simply a “carrot” to coerce road users to pay<\/a> because toll collection has been low.<\/p>\n Mona noted that Outa has a strong anti-e-toll attitude and “disrespect for the rule of law\u201d, adding that, “<\/span>as Sanral, our toll portfolio is a business<\/strong> and we cannot sit back if we are not collecting\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n According to Dembovsky, this positioning from Sanral is telling, with the JPSA chairman saying that “legislating companies into business and providing them with a ‘legally’ captive customer base in doing so, is vulgar and smacks of corruption”.<\/p>\n \u201cAnyone who cannot see this, is either blind or involved in it and offering bribes to motorists to come forward and register is just another manifestation of this,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n \u201cThere have been repeated calls for a referendum on e-tolls versus a dedicated, Gauteng-specific fuel levy and, despite repeated claims of e-tolls having been democratically implemented; government has simply ignored these calls,\u201d Dembovsky said.<\/p>\n