DoT weighs options for repaying GFIP debt

The Minister of Transport is committed to paying South Africa’s R20-billion Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project debt (GFIP), but that does not necessarily mean it will be via e-tolling. The process, placed on hold following a meeting between Minister S’bu Ndebele and the newly appointed South African National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral), is now under review. According to Ndebele’s spokesman, Logan Maistry, the Sanral board has been tasked to look into the matter following thousands of petitions delivered to the Department of Transport in November and December. “The Minister has asked the board to look into the entire GFIP matter and report back to him as a matter of urgency. The minister will take that report to Cabinet after which a decision on how South Africa will repay its debt will be made,” Maistry told FTW. Asked if e-tolling could be scrapped completely, Maistry said that would be pre-empting the Sanral investigation into the matter. “The point has to be made that government is committed to repaying its debt. We are now looking at various options to repay that debt. Will the e-tolling system be the way we repay the debt? I can’t say yes or no at the moment.” The tolling of the Gauteng roads caused a major uproar last year when the fee structure was announced by Sanral, leading to a major investigation into the matter that saw the toll fees reduced by Cabinet. Subsequent to this petitions kept streaming in to the Minister, said Maistry. “Based on that and also the unsolved issues following the hearings with stakeholders, the decision was taken to once again look into the tolling system and see what the other options of paying back the loan are.” Gavin Kelly, spokesman for the Road Freight Association, said they believed that e-tolling was not the best way forward as there were far better ways to repay the loan without causing such a major impact to the economy. Maistry told FTW the Sanral board had been tasked to look at the commitments made, but also the implications of not fulfilling, the timelines and also at the impact of the delays that have already taken place. “There is as yet no definite timeline but the urgency of the matter has been stressed and it is getting due consideration,” said Maistry. Kelly told FTW they were committed to working with the DoT in finding solutions for the paying back of the money. “We still believe that South Africa needs a good road network, that the user pay system is an option if it is a fair system,’ he said, “but we also believe that there is a cheaper and far more efficient way of paying for roads and their maintenance than tolling through a levy on fuel and the ring- fencing of funds.”