Sanral, ETC scale down e-toll kiosks as project ‘evolves’

081111. An E-toll Customer Service Kiosk in Southgate Mall opened for registration and customer service. 620 Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

081111. An E-toll Customer Service Kiosk in Southgate Mall opened for registration and customer service. 620 Picture: Dumisani Sibeko

Published Dec 22, 2014

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Roy Cokayne

THE SA National Road Agency (Sanral) and Electronic Tolling Company (ETC) have closed a number of the e-toll kiosks that were established in Gauteng to assist motorists to register for e-tags and pay their e-toll accounts.

Nadine Arendse, a spokeswoman for ETC, confirmed last week that 12 “temporary kiosks” had been closed in the past six months but there were still 35 “active sites” in Gauteng.

“The reason for the closures was to comply with the rampdown evolution of the project. This was always envisaged as part of the evolution of the project, hence the designation ‘temporary kiosks’,” she said.

Yolisa Pasipanodya, a spokeswoman for Sanral, added the closure of the temporary kiosks had been planned at the inception of the project.

The temporary kiosks were established to assist with the anticipated large number of initial registrations and anticipated enquiries due to a new system roll-out.

Commenting on whether further closures were planned, Pasipanodya said a prudent business always assessed the situation on an ongoing basis and addressed the situation as the need arose.

Pasipanodya said motorists could still pay their e-tolls at the permanent e-toll shops located in malls in Gauteng and the permanent customer service centres located along the Gauteng e-roads.

Registered users could also make payments at Shoprite, Checkers, Pick n Pay and selected Spar stores, over the counter at FNB banks, at note- accepting FNB ATMs, via electronic fund transfers on the e-toll website or via the e-toll call centre, she said.

Wayne Duvenage, the chairman of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa), said the alliance had no doubt Sanral and/or ETC were scaling down because of the far lower compliance levels than anticipated at this time last year.

Duvenage said Sanral chief financial officer Inge Mulder in January indicated that Sanral was confident of achieving the R260 million a month target in time.

However, the value of collections today had dropped to below R90 million a month, after peaking at R120 million in July.

He said these figures were based on Sanral’s submission to Gauteng Premier David Makhura’s e-toll advisory panel and the response by Transport Minister Dipuo Peters to a question in Parliament by the Freedom Front Plus indicating that e-toll revenues for the past 10 months was about R990 million.

“At this stage, they are barely collecting sufficient revenue to pay for the collection process, so it’s clear that all costs related to collections need to be questioned and reduced accordingly.

“Those kiosks that were dealing with minimal customer volumes were obviously the first to close and this is what we are witnessing today,” he said.

Duvenage said the real question was when would Sanral halt the entire scheme, which was now doomed as a result of low compliance and Sanral’s inability to prosecute.

Arendse said the people employed at e-toll kiosks were not employed by ETC but contracted by a temporary labour provider because of the temporary nature of their assignment.

She said about 38 project-related contract workers were affected directly by the closures but all had been converted to full-time employees of ETC, resulting in no job losses.

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