Alliance stands its ground on e-tolls

The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance has vowed to defend any members who appear in court. Picture: Itumeleng English

The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance has vowed to defend any members who appear in court. Picture: Itumeleng English

Published Nov 30, 2015

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Johannesburg - The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance has created a new speed bump for the SA National Road Agency Limited (Sanral) to negotiate in its drive to collect outstanding e-toll fees.

Wayne Duvenage, the chairman of the alliance, confirmed on Friday that it had many business members with significant outstanding e-toll bills and stressed that there was no need for fleet-based companies to fear the approach by the Electronic Tolling Company (ETC) or Sanral’s collection agents because the e-toll scheme was introduced unlawfully.

Duvenage said the alliance would provide “an extensive collateral defence” to protect its business members if their directors were summoned to appear in a criminal court or their companies were sued for the outstanding amounts.

He said the alliance believed it was unnecessary for businesses to disclose their outstanding e-toll bill amounts to shareholders because, in the alliance’s view, it was not a debt. Outstanding e-toll bills were related to an unjust and irrational law, he said.

“We applaud those companies who have exercised civil courage to stand strong and defy the e-toll farce. They are part of the 91 percent of Gauteng’s freeway users who have refused to pay their e-toll bills, which sends a loud and clear message to government.

“Irrational and unjust taxation, along with wasteful expenditure of hard-earned public funds will not be tolerated by the public and Outa commits to defend the fleet companies and all individuals within its member base from prosecution, regardless of the size of their outstanding e-toll bills,” he said.

E-toll debt

His comments follow the ETC disclosing last week that a private transport company had an outstanding e-toll bill of in excess of R20 million, the largest debt built up on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) e-toll system.

Mark Ridgway, the chief operations officer of ETC, said a number of JSE-listed companies had not disclosed their e-toll debt to their shareholders.

There is a total of R5.9 billion in e-tolls fees outstanding at the 60 percent discounted rate in terms of the new dispensation announced by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa in May.

Ridgway said the ETC had established a task force to collect the outstanding debt of the ring-fenced debt for the period from December 2013 up to August 31 this year and had brought in experts to help them with the tactical approach.

But Ridgway stressed that the ultimate strategy and tools it would use to collect the outstanding debt would be determined by Sanral.

Vusi Mona, the communications general manager at Sanral, said the announcement of the new e-toll dispensation by Ramaphosa was affirmation that the user-pay principle would be retained as the major funding method for the Gauteng e-toll system.

Mona said Sanral was the implementing agency of this system and non-payment of e-tolls, while using the roads, was civil disobedience.

He said Outa had become militantly opposed to e-tolls and had adopted an entrenched position on the matter.

“The difficulty with ideologues is whatever compromises you make or rational arguments you advance, they will never change their position,” he said.

Duvenage questioned why, after two years of operation and more than R6bn in outstanding bills, nobody to date had been issued a summons for non-payment of e-tolls.

“We believe this is because they [Sanral] have no case and without a legal channel of enforcement, their strategy is limited to carrots and intimidating messages to coerce the public into submission.”

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