After facing more than a decade of civil disobedience, the rulers of Gauteng \u2014 the province that\u2019s home to three of South Africa\u2019s five biggest cities \u2014 have caved in and switched off the electronic tolls on its key highways just before midnight Thursday (11 April).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Since the system started in 2013, most drivers in the province of 15 million people \u2014 or a quarter of South Africans \u2014 have refused to pay the levies to use the freeways that connect the country\u2019s biggest city of Johannesburg with Ekurhuleni and Pretoria.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In 2008, ahead of South Africa hosting the 2010 FIFA World Cup for soccer, the South African National Road Agency, known as Sanral, issued a little-noticed government gazette declaring that it would upgrade and toll the highways. While the improvements \u2014 alongside new stadiums and high-speed rail service \u2014 made the tournament a success, it was only in 2011 that it became clear to citizens that they\u2019d be paying for the new fly-overs and wider roads via e-tolls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In a country where most companies and people rely on road transport in the form of trucks, private cars or minibus taxis, it was a deeply unpopular decision, even though roads were heavily congested before the project.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cClearly, the resistance by Gauteng motorists and various other stakeholders suggests we could have consulted widely and done things differently,\u201d South African Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga said in a statement on Wednesday. \u201cBut that is now water under the bridge. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This matter caused a lot of public aggravation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Sanral erected fancy steel gantries that spanned the roads and launched advertising campaigns to get people to pay. Still, despite a series of toll-price reductions and constant threats of legal action by the agency, the tolling system \u2014 built and operated by Austria\u2019s Kapsch TrafficCom AG \u2014 has largely been ignored.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Vote Loser<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n The tolls were an election issue for the ruling African National Congress, with its share of the provincial vote falling to 36% in 2021 from 60% in 2011, creating tension between provincial and national leadership. <\/p>\n\n\n\n They\u2019re also the subject of numerous legal challenges that have caused Sanral\u2019s debt to soar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Now, as Sanral Chief Executive Officer Reginald Demana told Johannesburg broadcaster 702 Thursday, the agency will keep sending out invoices for the outstanding debt even though the company in 2019 said it would stop prosecuting non-payers, and that decision \u201cstands.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n In fact, Demana said, money already paid by the few who did comply, may even be repaid.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cIt was a vanity project,\u201d said Wayne Duvenage, who helped establish a legal and lobby group, the Opposition Against Urban Tolling Alliance, in 2012. \u201cIf you don\u2019t have a very compliant society with excellent systems\u201d, it won\u2019t work, and we don\u2019t, said Duvenage, who is chief executive officer of the group. It changed its name to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse in 2016 and expanded its mission to tackle government corruption.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, while civil society groups and citizens have hailed the decision, taxpayers will end up paying anyway.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This year, the National Treasury agreed to cover Sanral\u2019s R43 billion of debt from the project, with the Gauteng administration undertaking to pay the national government 30% of that and spend a further 4.1 billion rand on maintenance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Outa\u2019s Duvenage said he doesn\u2019t understand how the Treasury and Sanral arrived at that figure because work on 186 kilometres of highways and associated infrastructure cost R21 billion, against an initial estimate of R7 billion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n For now, the dispute is over, and the annoying noise e-tags make when cars pass under the gantries should cease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe beep will be phased out,\u201d Sanral said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
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