{"id":76869,"date":"2015-01-09T00:05:06","date_gmt":"2015-01-08T22:05:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=76869"},"modified":"2015-01-09T08:14:17","modified_gmt":"2015-01-09T06:14:17","slug":"the-r1-1-billion-e-toll-liability","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/trending\/76869\/the-r1-1-billion-e-toll-liability\/","title":{"rendered":"The R1.1 billion e-toll liability"},"content":{"rendered":"

South Africa is listed as Kapsch Trafficom’s biggest risk, with its controversial e-tolling project in Gauteng accounting for almost half of the company’s total potential liabilities.<\/p>\n

In its interim results published in December, Kapsch reported that its contingent liabilities and commitments for the South African tolling project were sitting at EUR80.5 million (R1.1 billion).<\/p>\n

Contingent liability is a term used to describe the potential liability (or in this case, loss) which may incurred by a company, often in an environment of high uncertainty.<\/p>\n

In Kapsch’s case, South Africa currently sits at the top of its books, with a R1.1 billion axe hanging over its head – with the local environment looking less than positive for the e-tolling system.<\/p>\n

The liability is noted for the first 6 months of Kapsch’s 2014\/15 financial year to September 2014, and accounts for 44% of Kapsch’s total contingent liabilities of EUR182.5 million (R2.5 billion).<\/p>\n

North American operation account for the second-biggest chunk (42%), with all of Kapsch’s other operations in Austria, Poland, Australia, Portugal and Czech republic covering the remaining 14%.<\/p>\n

\"Kapsch<\/a>

Kapsch liabilities<\/p><\/div>\n

Revenue prospects look bleak<\/h3>\n

It was previously reported by Kapsch that the outlook in South Africa remains negative, despite the e-tolling operation reaching ‘break-even’ point within the first half of its (Kapsch’s) financial year.<\/p>\n

Reporting on the state of e-tolls in the country in its interim results, Kapsch noted that the payment rate remains very low, and “the project in its entirety is still negative for Kapsch TrafficCom”.<\/p>\n

“We will continue to work hard on improving the profit situation in South Africa,” group CEO Georg Kapsch said.<\/p>\n

However, improvements may be a long way away.<\/p>\n

Sanral has stated in the past that it needs over R260 million a month to cover the costs of operating the system in South Africa.<\/p>\n

However, in the first year of operation to September 2014, the agency managed to collect only R1 billion.<\/p>\n

Revenue collected peaked at R120 million in June 2014, but had decreased to R86 million by September.<\/p>\n

Reporting to the e-toll review panel in November, Sanral noted that its total income from e-tolls between July and October was R365 million – well short of the group’s projected income of R545 million for the period.<\/p>\n

User prospects look bleak, too<\/h3>\n

According to Fin24<\/a>, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters recently responded to a parliamentary question on the number of registered toll users by noting that only half of all Gauteng road users were currently registered with the system.<\/p>\n

Peters noted that about 1.25 million out of a total 2.5 million motorists had registered with Sanral – and 93,292 road users had de-registered from the system by September 2014.<\/p>\n

Freedom Front Plus MP Anton Alberts, who asked in a parliamentary question, said that this was evidence that the e-tolling system is “systematically collapsing”.<\/p>\n

(1 EUR = 13.85 ZAR)<\/em><\/p>\n

More on E-tolls<\/h3>\n

E-toll collections \u2018break-even\u2019<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Sanral changing e-toll regulations: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Happy birthday e-tolls<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Panel wants e-tolls scrapped: report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

South Africa is listed as Kapsch Trafficom’s biggest risk, with its controversial e-tolling project in Gauteng accounting for almost half of the company’s total potential liabilities.<\/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":[1804,26,6051],"class_list":["post-76869","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-trending","tag-e-tolls","tag-headline","tag-kapsch"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76869","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=76869"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76869\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76877,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76869\/revisions\/76877"}],"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=76869"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76869"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76869"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}