Johannesburg - The withholding of vehicle licence discs because of outstanding e-toll accounts would not be lawful for the immediately foreseeable future, said Howard Dembovsky of Justice Project South Africa yesterday.
This follows Dembovsky receiving a response from national Transport Department officials Phillip Magagane and John Motsatsing to the letter he sent to them on Monday.
Dembovsky said the two officials admitted a reference to “regulation 11 of the e-Road regulations, 2015” was published in error in a government gazette notice published for public comment on July 17 about proposed amendments to the National Road Traffic Regulations about the withholding of vehicle licence discs because of outstanding e-tolls.
Dembovsky said Motsatsing had had confirmed that: “On further consultation with Sanral (SA National Roads Agency), it was confirmed that the 2015 regulations have not yet been published and are still being finalised. The department will do the necessary correction notice that exclude regulation 25 as contained in the regulation published for comments.”
Dembovsky said this meant that paragraph 2 of the notice gazetted for comment on July 17 may be completely disregarded by members of the public wishing to submit any comments on the proposed amendments to the National Road Traffic Regulations.
He said the remaining paragraphs remained open for public comment before August 14, with the correction gazette promised by Motsatsing facilitating this. “It is both appalling and alarming that such an ‘error’ should have crept into proposed amendments to legislation, particularly when such draconian measures as withholding licence discs is proposed.
“One would hope that legislators would pay proper attention to detail and to abiding by legislative requirements and the constitution,” he said.
He reiterated that when the department published amendments for public comment to the e-road regulations seeking to facilitate withholding the issue of licence disks, Justice Project SA would vigorously oppose any such proposals.
The department has failed to respond to repeated attempts by Business Report since Monday to obtain comment.
Dembovsky said that earlier this week Justice Project SA could not provide any comment on the updated regulations published for public comment on July 17 because it did not have the originating e-Road regulations to reference and therefore did not know under what circumstances Sanral thought it might impose an administration mark as a means to recover unpaid e-tolls.
Wayne Duvenage, the chairman of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance, said yesterday that the government gazette published on July 17 made an erroneous reference to an e-Road regulation that had not as yet been published for comment.
Duvenage said the alliance found it rather absurd that once again Sanral and the Department of Transport ”cannot get their act together when trying to amend legislation to force the unjust e-toll scheme into being”.
“Some four years have passed since the first planned launch of the e-toll scheme in April 2011 and, still to this day, the comedy of errors and problems abound, all of which indicate how problematic, irrational and unworkable the entire plan has become.”
Duvenage said the alliance was pleased the gazette would have to be amended and a corrected gazette would shortly be lodged by the department, which meant there was currently no link between outstanding e-toll bills and the renewal of vehicle licences.
But he stressed that “as and when the authorities do attempt to regulate e-toll payments through the renewal of vehicle license discs or any other methodology”, the alliance would challenge these “irrational decisions” and provide motorists with advice and input on how to deal with this strategy by the government.
Business Report