The government has written off the e-toll debt of Gauteng motorists, two years after its gantries were turned off. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa’s cabinet approved SANRAL’s closure of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project’s (GFIP’s) historical debt.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy, and the Deputy Minister, Mkhuleko Hlengwa, welcomed the decision. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The move includes two things: the close-out of GFIP historical e-toll debt and the resolution of all outstanding litigation matters. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Minister and Deputy Minister said that the decision is a long-awaited step to close the e-toll matter in an orderly and responsible manner. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
While the controversial e-toll gantries were turned off in April 2024, motorists were still legally obligated to pay for any e-toll invoices incurred before the cutoff. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, as was the case when the system was live, many South Africans still did not pay their e-toll debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Creecy and Hlengwa said that the move brings much-needed relief and lessens the financial burden to road users, who are currently facing high costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
This includes high fuel costs due to the war in Iran and the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, which led to a rapid rise in fuel costs. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
GFIP was implemented and operated by SANRAL and introduced as a funding mechanism for the upgraded Gauteng freeway network, going live in 2013. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the cabinet’s approval, outstanding and unpaid e-toll debt owed by road users will be written off. SANRAL will thus not pursue any further collection of e-toll debt. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Road users who lawfully paid e-tolls when the system was in force will, however, not be refunded. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The no-refund position arises from lawful levies at the time they were paid, that is, before the toll declarations were withdrawn. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The government said that the write-off of outstanding debt gives finality to road users, SANRAL, and the fiscus. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, the government emphasised that the user-pay principle remains an important part of South Africa’s road infrastructure funding framework, provided users accept it after negotiation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Cabinet has agreed to write off all e-toll debt for Gauteng motorists, two years after its gantries were turned off.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":862783,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":true,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11119],"tags":[429],"class_list":["post-862837","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-sanral"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862837","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\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=862837"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":862841,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/862837\/revisions\/862841"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/862783"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=862837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=862837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=862837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}