Johannesburg - The time has come for some straight answers from the South African National Roads Agency Limited, says the Automobile Association.
Tuesday marks the end of the extended period for Gauteng motorists to pay e-toll accounts incurred before 1 September 2015 at a 60 percent discount. The discount incentive, announced by deputy president Cyril Ramaphosa in May 2015, was to have ended on 2 May 2016 but has since been extended by minister of transport Dipuo Peters to 17 May.
The AA said on Monday: “We believe this is the appropriate time to assess the success of the e-toll system in terms of the number of motorists who have actually paid. These numbers should show, once and for all, to what extent the system has been accepted or rejected.”
Also read: E-toll discount extension was 'predictable'
With that in mind the AA has called on Sanral to answer the following questions - bearing in mind that the answer to each question is a number:
1. How many of the 4.5 million vehicles registered in Gauteng have been driven, even once, on the e-tolled roads?
2. How many of those vehicles were carrying e-tags?
3. Of all the vehicles that have been driven under a gantry, even once, how many of their owners have paid the e-toll and how many are outstanding?
4. How many vehicles have e-toll accounts outstanding from before 1 September 2015, how many of those have taken up the 60 discount offer and settled their 'historic debt', how many have made an arrangement to settle the outstanding amount and how many have ignored it?
5. How much money has been collected through the e-toll system since its introduction in December 2013?
6. How much of that money has been retained for management of the collection infrastructure, how much has gone to servicing Sanral's road-related debt and how much has gone to road maintenance and development?
7. How much money does Sanral believe it has lost through non-payment of e-tolls?
8. If Sanral intends issuing summons on all outstanding accounts, as it has indicated it will, how many summonses are involved and how long does it anticipate this process will take?
Closure needed
The AA pointed out that many numbers have been bandied about since the inception of e-tolling in Gauteng, regarding the uptake or lack thereof (depending on which side you're on) by the Gauteng motoring public.
By providing clear, numerical answers to these questions, it said, Sanral could now prove its assertion that Gauteng motorists had begun paying e-tolls and were beginning to accept the system.
“But if the numbers are still low at the end of the discount period,” it concluded, “it will show that motorists have voted with their wallets to reject e-tolling and the costs associate with collecting it.
“Either way, those numbers, clear and verifiable, will form the basis of a way forward to bring closure to this messy saga.”
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