It has been one year since South Africa’s Finance Minister promised that Gauteng’s controversial e-toll programme would be brought to an end, and yet motorists are still being charged by the system to this day.
The Organization Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), which has been a vocal critic of the toll gantries since before they were erected, describes the current state of affairs as “a broken promise to South African motorists.”
“As we stand in October 2023, not a single step has been taken to implement the decision to scrap e-tolls,” said the civil rights group.
“The burning questions are: What will it take for the government to honour its own commitment? What has Sanral done with the additional funds it received towards paying off the GFIP debt?”
Broken promises
In October 2022, minister Enoch Godongwana announced in his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTPBS) that the government had found an alternative funding method to address the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) that the province’s e-tolls were supposed to finance.
This new funding mechanism would use state-allocated funds, which meant that Gauteng’s road users could look forward to the end of e-tolls as soon as 31 December 2022, according to a statement by the province’s Premier, Panyaza Lesufi.
The Premier even announced that a possible refund was on the cards for the motorists who had complied with the tolling scheme over the years (a sum estimated at R6.8 billion), but none of these things have come to fruition yet.
The 2022 MTPBS allocated an additional R27.476 billion to Sanral, another R3.740 billion specifically for the GFIP, and R23.736 billion for Sanral’s debt redemption fund, yet when OUTA asked for an explanation of Sanral and the GFIP’s debt, and what was being paid off, it received no response from the relevant parties.
Fast forward to August 2023, and both the Gauteng provincial government and the Department of Transport (DoT) revealed in a parliamentary Q&A session that no plans were in place yet to shut down e-tolls, eight months after they were scheduled to do so in December of last year.
Additionally, Sanral had previously confirmed to TopAuto that it had renewed its e-toll collections contract until December 2023 and that motorists were still expected to pay their fees until the legislation had officially been repealed.
One of the reasons for the delay provided by the various stakeholders has been the matter of Sanral’s debt and how it should be handled, which resulted in the Gauteng government being saddled with 30% of the outstanding amount, while the national government would pick up the remaining 70%.
OUTA commented that the issue is not about the responsibilities of provincial and national government, but is rather about the irrationality and injustice of a scheme that has burdened Gauteng motorists for far too long.
“The irrational e-toll system has placed an unfair financial strain on citizens, and yet the government has either failed or refused to terminate it, despite making a clear decision to do so a year ago,” it said.
The organization condemned what it described as wasteful expenditure, referring to the admin costs of sending out bills to thousands of motorists for a system that ended a year ago.
“The continued delay in ending the e-tolls system is a betrayal of the trust that citizens have placed in their government,” said OUTA CEO Wayne Duvenage.
“We have patiently awaited relief from this irrational system, and the government’s inaction is causing needless stress to South African motorists.”
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