Cape Town - The City of Cape Town on Tuesday lashed out at the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), calling their media tour on the day desperate and their statements lies.
“Sanral's actions this morning show their desperation in trying to convince the public that they want to burden our residents with tolling for good reason,” said the City's Mayoral Committee Member for Transport Brett Herron.
“Residents of the Western Cape, however, will not be fooled by their latest publicity stunt at the Huguenot Tunnel in the hope of justifying this ill-conceived project”.
The so-called publicity stunt, a media briefing and tour by Sanral, saw engineers leading a walk-through of the tunnel's north and south bores. As part of Sanral's N1/N2 Winelands Toll Road project, a second tunnel - the North Bore - would be developed at the Huguenot Toll Plaza.
Upgrades and refurbishments were also in the pipeline for the South Bore, the tunnel currently used by the public. Some of the reasons Sanral provided for the upgrades and planned construction included improved traffic flow, safety, and security.
“It is alarmist to claim that there is an urgent need to construct a second Huguenot Tunnel due to safety concerns,” said Herron. Prior to Herron's statement, however, Sanral's Huguenot Project Manager Tiago Massingue said discussing the construction and need for the North Bore was not to spread terror but was one which pointed out factors engineers had to consider.
Sanral had also, during its tour, indicated that the initial work on the Huguenot project - predicted to cost between R1 billion and R1,5 billion - would be completed by December 2016.
The North Bore though, would take three years to be completed.
However, Sanral said that the City, through litigation, had put the process on hold and were thus increasing costs of routine road upgrades.
“Since litigation, all we can do is pick up papers along the road,” said regional manager JC Van der Walt.
“Because we could not continue with maintenance, the costs of sorting out things like cracks are much higher,” he said.
Herron, however, has hit back at Sanral for its statements.
“It is a blatant lie to claim that our interdict prevented Sanral from doing maintenance work,” he said. “Sanral should stop blaming the city for the impasse. The litigation before the Western Cape High Court was our last resort to prevent tolling,” he said. Herron stated Sanral was not prepared to engage the City prior to litigation and had thus brought this upon themselves.
“The City of Cape Town is of the firm belief that the process undertaken by Sanral to declare portions of the N1 and N2 as toll roads was improper and unlawful,” he said.
Herron explained that the City had, in its legal battle with Sanral, concluded their oral argument in the application to the Western Cape High Court for reviewing and setting aside Sanral's proposed tolling of portions of the N1 and N2 freeways. They were now awaiting judgment.
“This government remains opposed to the tolling of the N1 and N2 and [we] will do everything in our power to prevent this from being imposed on our City and our residents,” said Herron.
ANA