Johannesburg - Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa has stuck to his guns on the government’s latest e-toll dispensation, despite its rejection by SACP and Cosatu leaders.
Ramaphosa has also dismissed Cosatu’s proposed funding of Gauteng’s road infrastructure through a fuel levy.
He was addressing the SACP’s special national congress in Joburg on Thursday, where Cosatu president S’dumo Dlamini told him Cosatu still wanted the e-tolls system scrapped.
But Ramaphosa wasn’t budging, saying funding road infrastructure through the fuel levy would be detrimental to commuters using public transport.
“If you increase the fuel levy, it will increase the price of fuel, and the annual increases will be passed on to commuters.
“Under the current system, those using public transport are exempted from paying for e-tolls because taxis and buses do not pay e-tolls.
“Those who travel shorter distance also pay much less,” Ramaphosa pointed out.
He said the government was still open to discussions on how best to address the issue of e-tolls.
According to Ramaphosa, the e-toll issue had opened up a broader discussion on the country’s public transport system.
Earlier, Dlamini had told delegates that e-tolls was the one issue the alliance completely disagreed on. “We want the e-tolls scrapped. We will engage on the streets, in the boardrooms and in government,” Dlamini said.
In his political report presented to the congress on Wednesday, SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande also expressed the party’s opposition to the e-tolling system.
Nzimande said how the “excessive funding” for Gauteng’s road infrastructure was recouped was a secondary matter.
Public transport remained a problem for the majority of South Africans, he said.
“Public transport for the majority of Gauteng households without access to cars persists, as last week’s challenges in Mamelodi and Ekurhuleni have shown.
“The massive expatriation of surplus through e-tolls and ridership guarantees illustrates why we cannot simply allow ourselves to be dragged into a middle-class anti-e-toll, anti-government posture.
“Whether excessive funding of freeways in Gauteng is recouped through e-tolling or a petrol levy is a secondary matter. We should never be making strategic transport and urban infrastructure choices that serve a minority in the first place,” Nzimande said.
Ramaphosa also reassured the SACP and Cosatu that the government was working to implement a national minimum wage, for which they have both campaigned, and which would help increase the earnings of the working class.
“We are in dialogue with our social partners to introduce a national minimum wage and to reduce instability in the labour environment,” he added.
The Star