Plans to start e-tolling in Gauteng in the next two months don’t upset the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance.
Outa chairman Wayne Duvenage said on Thursday: “We’re not surprised or fazed by the SA National Roads Agency Limited's announcement. We've heard it all before.”
Sanral was not ready to launch, he said.
“It has been seven months since the Constitutional Court set aside the initial interdict to allow Sanral to start tolling, something they claimed they could and would do within two weeks of a ruling in their favour.
“We wonder what the real reasons are that this is taking them so long.”
“Averages can be very deceiving.”
It was wrong for Sanral to claim that Outa's legal challenge to halt e-tolling was of no consequence, he added. He said drivers shouldn’t be fooled by Sanral's claims that 78 percent of motorists would be paying less than R100 per month in toll fees.
A daily commuter travelling between Tshwane and Johannesburg, or the East and West Rand, would pay well over R300 a month, he said.
Duvenage said the Constitutional Court's ruling in September 2012 was related only to the temporary interdict against e-tolling. It was outside the scope of the tolling system's review, which would be heard in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein later this year.
TIMELINE
In April 2012 the High Court in Pretoria granted Outa an interdict approving a full judicial review before electronic tolling could be implemented. The interdict prevented Sanral from levying or collecting e-tolls pending the outcome of a review. Sanral and the National Treasury appealed the court order.
In September, the Constitutional Court set aside the interim order. In December the High Court in Pretoria dismissed Outa's application to scrap e-tolling.
On 25 January, however, the court granted Outa leave to take the matter to the SCA. That hearing will take place in September.
Duvenage said: “Should Sanral forge ahead regardless, the legal sword hangs over their plans and this should most certainly be of serious concern to them.”
It was estimated that fewer than 60 000 of Gauteng's 3.5 million drivers had bought e-tags.
“Sanral's claim that there have been 600,000 tags signed up is misleading,” he explained, “as we know they have given most of those to fleet management and government fleet organisations.” - Sapa