The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has passed on information to the National Prosecuting Authority regarding alleged corruption and bribery in two contracts by Electronic Toll Collections and Austrian owner Kapsch TrafficCom in the South African e-toll saga.
“The South African public has yet to see the e-toll impasse solution promised by government for nearly two years,” says Outa. “Over the last few days Minister of Transport, Fikile Mbalula gave another undertaking that an announcement on the future of the controversial scheme will be made before the end of this financial year, which is March 31. This has been promised since Cabinet set up a committee in July 2019 to find a solution.”
While news of this announcement by the minister is still awaited, Outa says it has received information of alleged corruption and bribery by the e-toll collection company and its majority owner, and how the owner initially ignored calls for an investigation.
In the first matter, Outa alleges that the South African e-toll operator, Electronic Toll Collection, paid a South African company called ProAsh an inexplicable amount of R10m over a three-year period, starting three months after winning the e-toll collection contract and with no apparent return for these payments.
In the second matter, the Austrian business Kapsch TrafficCom, which owns ETC, allegedly laundered a US$5.5m bribe to Zambian officials through its South African bank account.
ETC is majority owned by Kapsch TrafficCom AG, which is based in Austria, and its subsidiaries Kapsch TrafficCom AB (based in Sweden), and TMT Services and Supplies.
In September 2009, ETC was granted the contract to build, operate and maintain the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project open-road tolling system, commonly referred to as Gauteng’s e-toll system. The operations part of the contract was switched on in December 2013 when the e-tolls went live, and is still running following various extensions to the five-year contract.
“We believe these allegations of corruption, bribery and maladministration were reported to the ETC board and executive management of Kapsch TrafficCom in both South Africa and Austria in mid-2019, but were apparently initially ignored. In addition, these allegations were also reported to the SAPS, the US Department of Justice and the Vienna Stock Exchange (where Kapsch is listed), with no feedback from the authorities,” says Outa.
The organisaiton believes that the questionable payments by ETC to ProAsh and the indications that Kapsch paid a significant bribe to secure the Zambian contract raise questions about the awarding of the e-tolls build-operate-maintain contract which Sanral awarded to ETC in 2009.
“With the ongoing and mounting controversies related to the e-toll fiasco, Outa eagerly awaits the announcement of Minister Mbalula on the future of e-tolls. Furthermore, Outa believes that these latest revelations, along with others that Outa has raised regarding the ETC tender and contract values as well as the inflated GFIP construction costs, warrant the introduction of an independent inquiry on the e-toll matter.”