An agreement between the ANC and Cosatu on delaying Gauteng's e-tolls was not a mere suggestion, the union federation said on Thursday.
“It's quite annoying... to be told it's a mere recommendation,” Cosatu general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi told reporters in Joburg.
Earlier, Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe told a media briefing that a decision taken in a bilateral meeting between the ANC and Cosatu to delay the Gauteng e-tolls by a month was a suggestion.
Vavi said this was not how Cosatu understood it.
“We were meeting the ruling party, not an NGO.”
The ANC, chosen by a majority, was the most important player in South Africa, not government, he said.
Vavi said the government would fail in its application to the Constitutional Court to set aside a high court ruling on the e-tolls.
“Government is wasting time in courts at huge expense to taxpayers.”
On April 28, the High Court in Pretoria handed down an order preventing the SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) from levying or collecting e-tolls pending the outcome of a judicial review.
Last week, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan approached the Constitutional Court in a bid to set aside the court order halting e-tolling.
In April, while the High Court was hearing the e-toll arguments, the ANC and Cosatu held the meeting at which it was decided to postpone the implementation of the tolls.
“The leadership has collectively agreed to postpone the implementation of the e-toll collection system by a month,” the ANC said in a statement on April 26. – Sapa