Johannesburg - Nearly two weeks into the presentations at the Gauteng e-toll panel review, the minister of transport announced there would be no review of the user-pays principle.
In an interview on Talk Radio 702’s Midday Report with Stephen Grootes yesterday, Minister Dipuo Peters said the panel would not be making its submissions to her.
Peters said that when Gauteng Premier David Makhura spoke to her about the panel, he said it was an economic analysis of the whole Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project, including other transport methods in the province such as the Gautrain.
“But, unfortunately for me, that panel seems to have taken a life of its own,” Peters said angrily, adding that it seemed to be focused on things the premier never told her about.
“The user-pays principle is not under review,” she said.
As Peters was distancing herself from the process, transport organisations were making their presentations yesterday.
The AA said e-tolls were putting pressure on alternative municipal roads, which ultimately led to more road deaths.
COST OF TRANSPORT TOO HIGH
aa head of public affairs Marius Luyt said motorists were using 19 percent of their disposable income on transport to get to work, which was high compared to other countries, where it was closer to 14 percent on average.
The AA said road congestion was moved to other routes. This meant the road infrastructure was deteriorating, leading to more accidents.
According to the Department of Transport, poor road infrastructure contributes to between 5 and 10 percent of all road crashes, Luyt said.
He said about 14 000 deaths occur annually on South African roads, and for every road death, 20 people sustain non-fatal injuries.
“If we don’t stop the trend, road crashes will become the leading cause of death by the year 2020,” Luyt said.
DAMAGED SECONDARY ROADS
Sello Rasethaba, from the National Black Business Council and the Mediterranean Shipping Company, used a study from Germany which showed that when tolls were introduced on freeways, trucks moved onto secondary roads and damaged them.
He said the Germans then tolled the main roads, too, using satellite technology. They only tolled trucks and not ordinary vehicles.
Rasethaba suggested that South Africa follow suit and cancel all tolling for other vehicles because business could use rail as an alternative transport method.
SA Vehicle Rental and Leasing Association president Marc Corcoran said we needed to be careful about the way we use the user-pays principle.
He noted that Gauteng contributed half of the income tax collected in the country.
“There is a concern over user pays because Gauteng makes a major contribution to the fiscus and we receive back only a fraction of it,” Corcoran said.
He said Gauteng contributed for the delivery of services in other provinces, so we had already paid for the roads.
Corcoran also pointed out that the Gautrain and other modes of public transport were subsidised by non-users nationally.
“There is a disconnect there,” he said.
Corcoran highlighted how cumbersome the buying of e-tags and the payment of e-tolls was for the car rental business.
He said the industry had done a study and found that the negatives to e-tolling were that the industry had spent R18 million on Preparation costs; it was becoming a labour issue because staff wanted e-toll costs paid for; and an indirect cost was time taken to deal with customers’ billing queries and delayed invoicing.
“Conversation must move from ‘Gauteng’s roads, Gauteng’s debt’ to ‘Gauteng’s national roads are South Africa’s roads’,” Corcoran said.
The Star