The Road Freight Association (RFA) will lodge papers with the Constitutional Court today (Friday 8 June) opposing the application brought by the National Treasury to have the interdict against the levying and collection of tolls set aside. RFA spokesman Gavin Kelly said the organisation had briefed its attorneys and was determined to take legal action. “We are finalising the exact position we are taking but hope to lodge the court papers by today (Friday),” he told FTW. “We are opposing the application by the Treasury to have the interim interdict granted by the North Gauteng High Court dismissed.” National Treasury said they were opposing the interdict that calls for the entire process involving the tolling of Gauteng’s roads to be reviewed before the court on instruction of the Minister of Finance. Kelly said the interim relief granted by the High Court was a necessary step and therefore they were opposing the Treasury application for dismissal. “We believe there are fundamental flaws in the tolling system particularly in the collection of the tolls and so a full review must be done,” said Kelly. “The interdict allows for all the documentation to be brought to court and the entire process to be looked at in detail – something we have not been able to do as yet.” In a statement by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe last week on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project he said the court decision to grant an interim order against the implementation of e-tolling had major financial implications for not only Sanral but also the country. “Sanral borrowed R20 billion to fund the GFIP based on the knowledge that it would service the debt from the revenue collected through the tolling system. The delay in the collection of toll fees has resulted in Sanral not being able to meet its contractual and financial obligations. The reality is that the roads have been built, the toll collection infrastructure is in place and the debt has to be repaid,” said Motlanthe. It is here where the major problem lies, says Kelly. “The figure that Sanral put to the court during the application for the interdict was that it would cost some R20 billion to collect the fees and they borrowed R20 billion for the construction of the project. This is their figure and it does not make sense to pay that much to collect the fees. ” Kelly said there was no disagreement that the road upgrades were needed and that the country as a collective had to pay for it, but the way this entire process had been handled to date was not transparent. At the recent RFA conference in Durban Sanral CEO Nazir Alli said he was unsure where this figure of R20 billion was coming from. “It is a blatant lie to say we are going to pay more for the collection than the actual tolling itself. It is totally unsubstantiated and will come out in the court case.”
