Motorists with unpaid e-toll bills may still be on the hook, as the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) prepare for formal mediation.
Gauteng’s infamous e-toll gantries were shut down two years ago after years of boycotts from motorists and businesses, resulting in millions of rands in unpaid fees.
Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage told City Press that its case involves 2,028 individuals and businesses totalling R265 million.
The highest single claim for an individual is R815,000, while one business has a claim amounting to R13.5 million.
The organization filed papers against Sanral in the Pretoria High Court last year in August 2025, seeking an order for the roads agency to abandon its summons for all e-toll debts.
The court then suggested that Outa and Sanral should try to settle before initiating court proceedings. Duvenge said he hopes the mediation process will bring clarity.
However, the CEO added that the dispute will return to court is no agreement is reached.
The organisation argues that motorists can no longer be held liable for their outstanding e-toll debts.
Duvenge said that the cases are not only dormant, but were also never properly concluded, and that Sanral cannot issue summons and leave them without pursuing them further or formally abandoning them.
According to Outa, the roads agency dropped the recovery of historic e-toll debt after its board suspended debt collection in March 2019.
It further argued that this means the claims have died in practice and that they should be formally terminated.
“Outa argues that Sanral effectively abandoned the cases after the entity’s board resolved in March 2019 to suspend the e-toll debt collection,” Outa said when it filed papers in the High Court in August 2025.
“In the six years since then, Sanral has taken no further steps on these cases, and Outa is now seeking legal finality on the matters.”
The overhead e-toll gantries that billed passing motorists were shut down in April 2024, and the Gauteng Provincial Government is now set to pay 30% of Sanral’s debt while the national government has agreed to pay the remaining 70%.
Gauteng motorists still dealing with toll fess on major roads
While e-tolls may be gone, residents in Pretoria are still dealing with two toll plazas along the N1.
The Stormvoël and Zambezi ramp toll gates, which are located on the Stormvoël and Sefako roads connecting to the province’s main thoroughfare, have been in operation since 2000 and are a significant cost to motorists who have to drive through them as part of their daily commute.
They are used to generate revenue to fund upgrades and maintenance for the main roads leading to North West and Limpopo, however, the areas surrounding the plazas was much less developed when they were introduced.
Over the years, the toll gates’ primary users have changed from commercial fleets to private motorists traveling between Joburg and Pretoria, who are now paying hundreds of rands per month in toll fees.
The trade-off is that northern Pretoria was not subject to e-tolls like rest of Gauteng, such as the Ekurhuleni and Johannesburg metros, but now that e-tolls have been shut down, residents in South Africa’s capital are paying a road tax that other motorists aren’t.
This has become a source of frustration for commuters, who are pushing to have the toll plazas shut down.
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