The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has taken decisive action to force transparency and accountability from the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) with regard to contracts it has concluded with N3TC, one of its toll road concessionaires.
The organisation has lodged a formal request for information in terms of the Promotion of Access to Information Act (PAIA) from Sanral after the organisation ignored a written request for information on its contract with N3TC.
“We believe that the contracts with ‘long distance’ road tolling concessionaire companies must be transparent and their books opened to the public, as we believe there is a possibility that concessionaires could be benefiting from excessive profits, part of which may require credit to the road users in reduced toll fees or returns to Sanral,” says Advocate Stefanie Fick, head of the accountability division at Outa.
While the organisation acknowledges that public-private partnerships (PPPs), such as those between the Department of Transport and Sanral and the concessionaires to build a number of our national road networks, are important, it has reservations about the lack of transparency. “These PPPs are known as BOT (build, operate and transfer) concession contracts that enable private companies to build, upgrade and maintain South Africa’s national road network on behalf of Sanral for specific time periods – in the case of N3TC, a period of 30 years.
“The intention,” Outa explains, “is that the State will receive these roads back from the concessionaires after the 30-year period, after which Sanral will continue managing the road network and operating the toll plazas.”
During the 30-year contracted period, the concessionaire is entitled to make a reasonable profit from this process, but the question, says Outa, is what is “reasonable” and how much profit has N3TC made to date?
The organisation believes the public should also know what the concessionaire’s projected profits look like for the remaining years of the contract, including what road users can expect to receive in the way of lowered toll rates or revenue returns to Sanral.
“The annual returns Sanral has been receiving from the three concessionaires have been minimal and remained unchanged, year on year for many years. This would indicate that little is being done in the annual evaluation of the concessionaire profits, leaving us with a suspicion that the public may not be receiving a fair share of return from these contracts. During the past 10 years, the toll tariffs charged by the concessionaires have increased by approximately 80%, yet Sanral has received a fixed amount. Something doesn’t add up," says Wayne Duvenage, Outa CEO.
Outa believes the public has a vested interest in this matter, and the right to the information sought from Sanral, thus the decision to lodge the PAIA application and get all the facts.
“We can’t understand the secrecy. If our past experience with Sanral is anything to go by, we can’t trust Sanral to look after the public’s best interests,” says Duvenage.
Outa is in the process of requesting similar information from the other two concessionaires
