Maimane: Sanral aware of e-toll aversion

379 02-09-2013 Wonke Wonke super market shop owner Sizwesenkosi Ncobo, Maserishane Debeila with Democratic Alliance Gauteng Premier candidate Mmusi Maimane and DA MP Ian Ollis during their visit in Thembisa to meet small business owners to discuss the impact of e-tolling. Picture: Tiro Ramatlhatse

379 02-09-2013 Wonke Wonke super market shop owner Sizwesenkosi Ncobo, Maserishane Debeila with Democratic Alliance Gauteng Premier candidate Mmusi Maimane and DA MP Ian Ollis during their visit in Thembisa to meet small business owners to discuss the impact of e-tolling. Picture: Tiro Ramatlhatse

Published Sep 3, 2013

Share

Pretoria - The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has known since 2009 that people are opposed to e-tolling, yet it remains committed to implementing a system it knows will not work.

This is according to the DA candidate for the Gauteng premiership, Mmusi Maimane. He was speaking in Vusimuzi, Tembisa, where he met small businesses owners to discuss the effect that e-tolling would have on them. Maimane was accompanied by the DA’s national spokesman on transport, Ian Ollis.

Sanral’s April 2009 documentation indicated that 69 percent of drivers were willing to pay a toll fee, while 31 percent were not willing, Maimane said. He said that in June 2009, the results were amended, indicating that 48 percent of people would not be willing to pay e-tolls.

Maimane said Sanral and the Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) company knew that high levels of public compliance were critical to the success of the project.

A section, “Road users segmentation”, in the ETC document states: “Should such a sizeable group actively resist compliance, law enforcement will be seriously hampered and it could become virtually impossible to implement. Sizeable active resistance could jeopardise the project as a whole.”

Maimane said that despite its research findings, Sanral continued to try to impose the e-toll system on drivers with the backing of the Transport Department.

It was not fair that people be expected to fork out money for highways for which they were paying through taxes, Maimane said.

Ollis said billions of rand in fuel levies that could have been used on roads had been spent on other projects.

A Tembisa butcher and grocer, Sizwesenkosi Ngcobo, said he was opposed to e-tolls, despite being an ANC supporter.

“Insisting on e-tolls is likely to lose (the) ANC a lot of votes,” he said. “I get stock from Pretoria, City Deep and other places. If I have to pay e-tolls I will have to increase the prices of my goods, people will stop buying and I’ll possibly go out of business. E-tolls will kill me.”

Sanral spokesman Vusi Mona said an independent study by UCT had indicated e-tolls would be strongly positive for business because of an improved road system. “Maimane should not come with his Grade 10 economics analysis. He can’t talk about cost without talking about the benefit.”

Pretoria News

Related Topics: