Pretoria - The outcome of a judicial review of the e-toll system, starting in the Pretoria High Court on Monday, could mean the end of the road for e-tolls on Gauteng’s roads.
To toll or not to toll. This has been a matter of great uncertainty since the Constitutional Court set aside an interim interdict, granted in April by the Pretoria High Court, preventing the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) from instituting tolling on Gauteng roads until a full review of the system was done.
A high court judge will have the final say this week as to whether Gauteng road users will have to dig deep in their pockets to make up the excess of R21 billion debt incurred for the upgrade of Gauteng freeways.
On Thursday last week, Parliament postponed the review of the controversial bill governing the enforcement of e-toll tariffs till next year. This means that road users will spend a toll-free Christmas, but should the high court rule in favour of the system, tolling could be implemented as early as March next year.
The Chairman of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance, Wayne Duvenage, said he was confident that the alliance’s legal team had done its homework and was well prepared for the hearing.
Duvenage thinks the alliance’s lawyers have compelling arguments. The review will be heard over three days.
Pretoria News