Bloemfontein - How to pay for the erected Gauteng toll road infrastructure might be the only issue now to be decided, the Supreme Court of Appeal heard on Wednesday.
“You cannot undo history,” Mike Maritz, for the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa), said in reply to questions about the gantries that had already been built.
Outa wants the court to set aside the decision to declare some of Gauteng’s freeways toll roads.
Maritz said this could be the only way to compel the SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) to comply with legal procedures.
He further submitted that Sanral and government had not considered the e-toll system's cost to the public.
“One gets the impression it was a done deal, the erecting of a Gauteng e-toll system, irrespective of the cost.”
Maritz said this could not have been a rational decision and on this single ground the move to implement a toll system could be unlawful.
It was submitted that Sanral must have been the safety net for proper public processes.
The agency should have foreseen the project's consequences on the public and the economy and taken the public's views into account, Maritz argued.
Previously the High Court in Pretoria granted Outa leave to appeal against a judgment it handed down.
Outa argued, on appeal in the lower court, it had misinterpreted a section of the Sanral Act on public consultation to reach its ruling that e-tolling could proceed.
The matter continues.
Sapa