Cosatu’s e-toll fight heats up
JOBURG - The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) announced plans to burn e-toll bills outside the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) offices and was encouraging motorists to do the same.
“We will be convening a big burning ceremony in front of the Sanral office in due course for the public to bring their bills for us to collectively burn… as part of our defiance campaign,” said Cosatu’s provincial secretary general, Dumisani Dakile.
In a bid to intensify its fight against the controversial system, the federation called for civil defiance as part of the next phase of its anti-e-toll campaign.
“We are calling upon our communities and the drivers of Gauteng to continue to use the highway and not to pay… the e-tolls bills,” Dakile said.
“We are calling upon our people to continue to defy the system and those who received the bills must burn them.”
Meanwhile, the federation welcomed the establishment of the panel by Gauteng premier David Makhura, which was tasked to review the impact of the system in the province.
“We think that these efforts to find an amicable solution to the disaster created by the Department of Transport and its agency, Sanral, should be afforded a space by all and sundry,” Dakile said.
However, he added that the federation rejected attempts by the roads agency and the National Prosecuting Authority to prosecute motorists who were not registering and those not paying their e-toll bills.
“The Department of Transport is in effect saying that the panel’s findings will not make the slightest difference to national government policy, that it is business as usual and e-tolls are here to stay anyway.”
The federation had embarked on mass protest action and several ‘drive-slows’ in defiance of e-tolling, which was implemented on 3 December last year despite fierce opposition and legal wrangling.
