The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has strongly refuted claims by the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) company – which collects e-tolls on behalf of the South African National Roads agency Limited (Sanral) – that road infrastructure upgrades are not possible without the outstanding e-toll fees. ETC chief project officer, Coenie Vermaak, said that the average speed when there was traffic congestion on the N1 between Johannesburg and Pretoria was currently 47 kilometres per hour (km/ph), and this would drop to 29km/ph by 2037 if no further investments were made in road infrastructure. Vermaak was reacting to news that 70-75% of road users were still not paying their outstanding e-toll bills, following Minister of Transport Blade Nzimande’s comments in parliament recently that non-payment of e-tolls had become a national issue and that government would seek solutions to enforce payment. He acknowledged that there were major challenges in ensuring compliance, saying the ETC was actively looking at ways to make e-toll compliance easier. “There’s a massive amount outstanding and, as Sanral borrowed the money to expand the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), if the e-toll project is scrapped, income will be halted and Sanral will be in breach of certain governance agreements with their lenders,” he explained. One way or another, said Vermaak, the tax payer would foot the bill. “If we can get over our emotional reactions, we can look at solutions.” In his view this will drive the economy even further south and possibly risk a further downgrade. “Sanral is a wellfunctioning organisation doing a good job of building roads and the solution remains the GFIP for sustainable road infrastructure development,” said Vermaak. According to him, new highways, totalling 158km, need to be built to alleviate congestion on the roads and create economic investment in areas that are not seeing capital injection. These include the south of Johannesburg and outskirts of Soweto. “This phase would include connecting Soweto to Roodepoort and redirecting traffic congestion off the heavily used Gillooly’s interchange,” he said. Wayne Duvenage, CEO of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) – which has been in vocal opposition to e-tolls since their inception – was adamant that e-tolling was not the only funding solution to road upgrades. He said it was “ludicrous” that 34% of Sanral’s revenue was expected to come from 1% of road use via e-tolls. “We have outlined various more sustainable alternatives to e-tolls,” he said, calling on the businesses who make up the 25% of Gauteng freeway users and who continue to keep the e-toll system on life support to stop paying. “The handful of companies (mainly large corporate entities) who appear to be afraid to cross swords with government are the main reason that the e-toll scheme continues to limp along, with approximately R60 million income per month which is barely managing to cover the collection process,” said Duvenage. He pointed out that “if and when a few more of these large corporate entities” exercised moral courage to join the rest of society, government would have no choice but to cancel the scheme.
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The handful of companies who appear to be afraid to cross swords with government are the main reason that the e-toll scheme continues to limp along. “ – Wayne Duvenage
