Johannesburg - Inaccurate reporting by the media fed misperceptions about the e-tolls system, SA National Road Agency chief executive Nazir Alli complained on Thursday.
Before continuing the Sanral presentation to the e-tolls review panel in Pretoria, Alli said he was disappointed when he saw yesterday’s report in The Star indicating that Sanral was broke.
The Star reported that Sanral had told the panel on Wednesday that it was broke and warned that the country would be in serious trouble if it wasn’t able to pay off its R20 billion debt.
Elements of Sapa news agency’s reports from the hearings on Wednesday were incorporated into the newspaper report. These included a statement by Alli that South Africa would be in “serious trouble” if the e-tolling debt was not settled, and that “there is no new money”.
The Star reported that in Transport Minister Dipuo Peters’s presentation to the panel on Tuesday, she said motorists could pay up to an extra R3.65 per litre of petrol to repay the debt.
Alli said at no point had the minister ever said that was what was needed to repay the debt on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP). “This is how perceptions are created, by misinformation, then we have to deal with how you try and regress the entrenched views that are created by misrepresentation,” he said, showing a copy of The Star to the panel.
“To deliberately not check your facts and turn around and call our (transport) minister a liar and deliberately mislead the public, I think is unfair and uncalled for.”
He appealed through the panel that they ask the newspaper to print a correction.
NO RETRACTIONS
Sapa editor Mark van der Velden said the news agency stood by its own reporting on the hearings and that Sapa had never reported Sanral saying it was broke. “That would have been an interpretation based on the statements reported,” he said.
The acting editor of The Star, Kevin Ritchie, said Alli was entitled to his views and interpretation of the facts.
“The rollout of the e-toll campaign has been an abject failure, drivers aren’t paying, the bills are skyrocketing with no hope in sight – except a government bailout – that would be a technically insolvent business, or broke if you like, by any definition. We won’t be issuing any retraction,” Ritchie said.
Sanral yesterday employed a prominent public relations firm to issue a lengthy and urgent statement to Sapa, claiming the reports showed “a lamentable understanding of the business”.
Van der Velden said Sanral was misdirected in asking the review panel to order a correction just because it claimed the reports were wrong.
“It is welcome to rather take the issue to the Press Ombudsman, who would look at the issues objectively.” Ritchie agreed.
The panel was established by Gauteng Premier David Makhura to examine the socio-economic impact of the GFIP and the electronic tolling system set up to fund it.
Meanwhile at the hearings, Alli told the panel that the national road network was a national asset. “To put it into context of what is happening, we have 750 000km of roads network,” Alli said. “What a lot of people don’t always understand is that it’s the 10th largest in the world… You need to take into account what the value of that particular asset is to South Africa Incorporated.”
An academic told the panel that Gauteng’s new roads had saved commuters money for three years, and they were now being asked to pay for the project through e-tolls. “People have got used to lower costs of travel, three years of lower costs of travelling, and now they’re being asked to pay for it,” UCT Graduate Business School economist Barry Standish said. – Sapa with additional reporting by Staff Reporter