E-toll summonses ‘pure victimisation’

Cars drive under a road toll in Johannesburg December 2, 2013. South Africa's government launched a widely unpopular road toll around the economic hub of Johannesburg on Tuesday, a move likely to heighten tensions with its union allies and alienate some voters in the run-up to next year's elections. The electronic levies, known as e-tolls, have fuelled public anger and strained relations between President Jacob Zuma's African National Congress (ANC) and COSATU, the labour federation that has supported the ruling party since the end of apartheid in 1994. Picture taken December 2, 2013. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko (SOUTH AFRICA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS TRANSPORT)

Cars drive under a road toll in Johannesburg December 2, 2013. South Africa's government launched a widely unpopular road toll around the economic hub of Johannesburg on Tuesday, a move likely to heighten tensions with its union allies and alienate some voters in the run-up to next year's elections. The electronic levies, known as e-tolls, have fuelled public anger and strained relations between President Jacob Zuma's African National Congress (ANC) and COSATU, the labour federation that has supported the ruling party since the end of apartheid in 1994. Picture taken December 2, 2013. REUTERS/Siphiwe Sibeko (SOUTH AFRICA - Tags: POLITICS BUSINESS TRANSPORT)

Published Apr 28, 2016

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Johannesburg - For more than two years, the South African National Roads Agency Limited has been threatening the public with court action for non-payment of e-tolls, but for political and practical reasons, nothing has come of it. Until now.

Meanwhile, the public backlash against the system has continued to grow, says the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, to the the point where compliance has dropped from about 40 percent in mid-2014 to less than 20 percent by the end of 2015.

More than two million motorists are simply refusing to pay for the e-toll scheme, it says, on the grounds that only 29c of each rand paid in tolls goes towards building, maintaining and operating the roads, while the rest goes either on finance charges or into the pockets of the private companies running the scheme.

But now, says Outa chairman Wyne Duvenage, Sanral has begun issuing Magistrate and High Court summonses - but against less than 0.3 percent of e-toll defaulters. This, he says is state coercion and victimisation of its citizens - to an extent unheard of since the dawn of our new democracy.

“We regard this as an onslaught against the people's freedom of movement and participative action in decisions that impact them,” Duvenage said on Thursday.

Several Outa members had received High Court summonses for amounts ranging between R400 000 and R8 million, he confirmed, adding that the organisations lawyers had filed notices of intention to defend these matters with the North Gauteng High Court and that a trial of this nature could possibly take years to finalise.

Also read: Only 29c of each toll rand for roads

Duvenage insisted that Sanral’s claim that the courts had ruled in its favour on this matter, was pure fallacy. He pointed out that the Supreme Court of Appeal had set aside the e-toll review judgment in 2013 and stated very clearly that the public had every right to raise a challenge against the scheme, if the state tried to coerce the public into comply. And that, he said, was exactly what Sanral was doing.

Duvenage said the organisation was well prepared for this legal challenge, with past court papers and strong new evidence which has emerged since then. This would show how - and why - Sanral had run roughshod over the public's constitutional rights and other legal requirements in declaring Gauteng's freeways as tolled roads.

The bottom line, he said, was that it is not unlawful to refuse to pay e-tolls.

To assist the public, the organisation has posted guidelines on its website, www.outa.co.za , on how to launch a defensive challenge should they be summonsed, or have the organisation assist them in defence of Sanral's summonses.

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