E-toll billboards to stay for now: DA

871 A billboard announcing the coming og e Tplls on the Gauteng highways allegedly brought by the ANC is on display on the N# highway near the Rand Airport. 031013 Picture: Boxer Ngwenya

871 A billboard announcing the coming og e Tplls on the Gauteng highways allegedly brought by the ANC is on display on the N# highway near the Rand Airport. 031013 Picture: Boxer Ngwenya

Published Oct 7, 2013

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Johannesburg - DA billboards poking fun at the ANC about e-tolling will stay up as long as possible on Johannesburg's highways, spokesman Mmusi Maimane said on Monday.

Asked how long the Democratic Alliance intended keeping the billboards in place, he said: “As long as they can.”

The billboards, visible along the N3 and N1 highways, read: “E-tolls. Proudly brought to you by the ANC.”

Maimane said information related to the company involved in the billboard and the details of the contract would not be made public in consideration of the company.

However, the billboard itself was a secondary issue, he said.

“The critical issue is the ANC must defend its own policy that it implemented,” Maimane said.

“... Sanral (the SA National Roads Agency Limited), at the recent e-tolling hearing I attended before the Supreme Court of Appeal (in Bloemfontein), said they were beholden to a Cabinet decision.”

He reiterated that the DA was “absolutely” ready should the ANC challenge the validity of the billboards.

“Nothing has changed in that regard.”

The billboards raised the ire of Transport Minister Dipuo Peters earlier in the day. She said they were the work of cowards.

“(These are) people who don't have the decency to actually acknowledge what the ANC government has delivered in this country,” she said at a business breakfast in Midrand.

“(They) want to focus on one aspect and turn an important infrastructure of the economic hub of South Africa... into a gimmick.”

Maimane said he had always acknowledged the progress South Africa had made as a country.

He cited his disagreement with Economic Freedom Fighters' leader Julius Malema, who said last month that the African National Congress was worse than the apartheid government.

What was cowardice, was the announcement while President Jacob Zuma was out the country on September 25 that the Transport Laws and Related Matters Amendment Bill had been signed, paving the way for e-tolling.

Zuma was in New York for the 69th session of the United Nations (UN) general assembly at the time.

The presidency said the bill was signed into law on September 21, before Zuma left for the UN general assembly.

Maimane said: “We have stated it is our billboard and we will stand by it.”

ANC spokeswoman Khusela Sangoni-Khawe said the ANC had noted the DA's involvement in the billboards.

“We've noted that the DA have put up the two billboards and we are not going to comment any further,” she said.

Sapa

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