The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has declared that the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) roads will no longer be toll routes from 11 April.
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) welcomed the declaration, which was published recently in the Government Gazette, reversing the 2008 Gazette that declared the upgraded freeway network to be tolled roads.
This comes after Outa fought the e-toll scheme through the courts and official enquiries, across social media, in protest action on the highways, bridges, and outside government offices, and in Parliament.
“But ultimately, it was the stand taken by hundreds of thousands of motorists and business leaders who defied the scheme and refused to pay their e-toll bills, supported by Outa’s promise to defend everyone who was summonsed for non-payment of these bills, which brought the scheme to its knees,” Outa said in a statement.
The e-tolls conflict was presided over by seven ministers of transport, a trail of finance ministers and three presidents over a period of twelve years.
“Outa was formed exactly twelve years ago in March 2012 to tackle the irrational scheme and the constitutional concerns arising from government’s decision to introduce an e-toll scheme to Gauteng’s upgraded freeways. It has been a long road, but today we can officially celebrate the end of e-tolling in Gauteng,” said Outa CEO, Wayne Duvenage.
While Outa was unable to persuade the courts to halt the scheme in 2012 because the money had already been spent and the roads built, Outa challenged it in several ways from instituting individual collateral challenges to civil disobedience.
“Bad laws need to be treated in a manner that sends government back to the drawing board, and one such avenue is civil disobedience, which Outa drove. Fortunately, the general motoring public stood strong and collapsed the system,” Duvenage said.
He said the e-toll debacle had been a harsh lesson for government.
“Public participation must be meaningful, thorough and should demonstrate that public input has been taken seriously if new policies and laws are to be respected.”
“The scheme had all the signs of failure long before it was launched in December 2013, yet government proceeded without listening to its citizens. Despite evidence-based research from Outa pointing to the scheme’s looming failures, government persisted for years, resulting in the waste of billions of rand in taxpayers’ money on this expensive and grossly ineffective collection scheme,” said Duvenage.
He said Outa was not opposed to the user-pays principle, or the use of electronic tolling technology. However, it was concerned about the lack of transparency, a meaningless public consultation process and the “largely unworkable” administrative process.
“This victory should send a significant message to government that they should never ignore the voice and the power of the people,” said Duvenage.
“This battle was not an easy one, with the onslaught of government propaganda, expensive court challenges, excessive bullying, and coercive campaigns. The formal announcement of an end to the scheme is a victory for citizen power and organised civil society.”
