The National Traffic Intervention Unit will be responsible for policing Gauteng's e-tolling freeways.
An internal memo that The Star has seen, shows that Sanral, the Electronic Tolling Company and the Road Traffic Management Corporation have an agreement in terms of which the unit will police e-toll defaulters.
The intervention unit was launched in 2011 amid much fanfare. At the time the unit was promoted as an elite unit set up to deal with any traffic situation in the country.
Other than transport minister Sibusiso Ndebele mentioning in his speech that the unit had undergone special training in a joint programme between the RTMC and Sanral, there has been no mention of Sanral's involvement in the unit.
The Star has seen minutes to a meeting held in 2010 that was attended by Tolplan (the company overseeing the e-tolling project), various members of the RTMC and Alex van Niekerk from Sanral.
The meeting was to discuss the training of the traffic police unit, which had at that stage not been launched.
According to the minutes, RTMC would send all its invoices to Sanral, that open-road tolling should be branded on the vehicles and that ETC was procuring uniforms.
RTMC's Ashref Ismail admitted for the first time on Wednesday that the unit would be involved in e-tolling. Ismail said the traffic unit had not been established to police e-tolling, but rather because the minister had expressed the desire to have a national traffic police unit.
However, Sanral came on board and offered to pay for the training and resources of the unit, Ismail said.
“Sanral became part and parcel of the unit. They asked for a specialised unit to assist them when the toll roads came and we were onboard,” said Ismail.
He said while Sanral provided the money for training and resources, all management and strategy was handled by the RTMC.
He said the RTMC would be willing to partner with other companies and was not worried about the unit's funding if the tolling did not go ahead.
“We were established by the department and the treasury will fund us,” said Ismail, adding that the unit, which currently had 280 members, was hoping to become 1000 strong and operate all over the country.
Ismail admitted their focus was on Gauteng because of the possible launch of e-tolling.
He also admitted the unit's vehicles were equipped with number-plate recognition technology, mainly in order to catch toll dodgers, but the technology could also be used to catch motorists who have not paid traffic fines or who had warrants of arrest.
Automobile Association spokesman Gary Ronald said he was astonished to learn the unit would be used to police Gauteng's e-toll freeways.
“That's more than 200 cops for 185km of roads. If this is true then these would be the safest roads in the country, in fact the world. Not even New York has a police to road kilometre ratio like that,” Ronald said.
The DA's Neil Campbell said he had a number of issues with the unit being used for e-tolling.
“Why was ETC involved in their training? What does a private company have to do with law enforcement?”
He also said that if the unit concentrated only on Gauteng's roads it was unfair to the road users in the province.
Sanral had not commented at the time of going to print.
TRAFFIC ENFORCEMENT - JOHANNESBURG'S BIG THREE
NATIONAL TRAFFIC INTERVENTION UNIT
Meant to police all roads in South Africa where intervention is needed.
The unit will be seen at checkpoints, multi-disciplinary roadblocks, high-impact visibility patrols, unmarked patrols and alcohol test centres.
There are 280 intervention traffic police with 16 vehicles.
JOHANNESBURG METROPOLITAN POLICE DEPARTMENT
Works within the Johannesburg municipality.
Metro police are responsible for road traffic offences, as a crime prevention unit and to make sure the city's bylaws are being enforced.
There are about 3000 JMPD officers with 668 vehicles.
GAUTENG TRAFFIC POLICE
A provincial traffic police unit which operates throughout the province under the department of community safety.
Primarily focused on traffic and road policing and crime prevention.
They have specialised units such as the high-speed unit, anti-truck hijacking and taxi violence specialisation.
There are about 564 Gauteng traffic police officers with 419 vehicles. - The Star