The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) believes that government will not refund e-toll users who have been diligently paying their accounts for the past decade because there are simply no funds available to do so.
In October 2022, the Gauteng and National governments reached a consensus to put an end to the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) – read: e-tolls – with the former settling 30% of the scheme’s debt and the latter 70%.
In January 2023, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi stated that part of this agreement includes refunding compliant motorists who paid their e-toll bills.
Speaking to Newzroom Afrika this week, Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage said: “From [a perspective of] paying back those who have paid e-tolls, I don’t think that’s going to happen, I think Panyaza Lesufi was out of line when he made that comment a year ago, and he’s been trying to dodge it ever since.”
“There are no funds and government wasn’t unlawfully collecting, and those who paid, paid voluntarily, those who didn’t pay, chose to take the risk, so there’s not going to be a refund we don’t believe.”
Furthermore, Duvenage said that Gauteng should not have been held responsible for settling any e-toll debt as the gantries were on national roads, but that the province was “bullied” into it.
Treasury has been financing e-tolls through the National Roads Agency (Sanral) for over eight years now to the tune of R18 billion, however, Outa suspects that Sanral has been using the funds as operating expenses rather than for covering bonds and interest rates on loans, and it is therefore unable to scrap together the cash to settle the arrears.
With these entities being the main financiers and beneficiaries of the GFIP, Outa contends that they should be the ones covering the debt, not Gauteng.
“Gauteng gets 85-90% of its money from National Treasury anyway, so it just doesn’t make sense [for it to settle e-toll debt],” he said.
“These roads need to be continued to be financed by Treasury as they have been, by the way; they don’t have to go and find more money, they just need to continue doing what they’re doing and Gauteng must do something about getting out of this noose that they’ve been allowed to put around their neck.”
The end of e-tolls
At his annual State of the Province Address (SOPA) on Monday, 19 February, Premier Lesufi announced that the Gauteng and National governments have finally reached an agreement that they will switching off and delinking the e-toll system by 31 March 2024.
He said the intention of e-tolls was to improve the province’s roads, but that things have finally reached the point where the powers that be have accepted that the people of Gauteng have rejected the scheme.
Lesufi steered clear of commenting on any refunds, and said that Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana would elaborate on the particulars of the decision to scrap e-tolls during his Budget Speech on Wednesday, 21 February.
However, Godongwana’s speech came, and went, with no mention of e-tolls.
As such, it remains unclear when, or if, the gantries will be deactivated, as this cannot be formally done until the regulations enabling the system have been repealed and Gauteng has put forward its plans on how it intends to cover its portion of the payment.
Lesufi didn’t clarify whether the legislative process to deactivate e-tolls will commence on 31 March, or whether all the necessary paperwork will be handled before then to allow the gantries themselves to be delinked from this date onwards.
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