E-tolls: Pay up or face prosecution
JOBURG - Motorists have been warned to pay within seven days of receiving e-toll bills or be handed over to debt collectors.
Vusi Mona, South African National Roads Agency communications manager, said although e-tolling is a prepaid system, motorists will be given a seven-day “grace period” to pay their e-toll transactions.
“If the e-toll transaction is not paid within seven days, it is transferred to the Violations Processing Centre [the section of e-toll operations that deals with overdue toll amounts],” Mona said.
He explained that if debt collection failed, a Final Demand would be issued and if payment if still not received, the issue would be handed over to the prosecuting authority.
Mona added that the Sanral Act Section 27 (5) (a) allows the non-payment of toll fees to be prosecuted as a criminal offence.
He advised motorists to buy an e-tag and register it to avoid facing debt collection.
Motorists can make e-toll payments via credit card, EFT or debit order.
Once tolling commences, top-up facilities will also be available.
Meanwhile, according to reports, an offer by legal firm Findlay & Niemeyer Inc. to defend the first non-compliant e-toll road user has proved to be contentious, with the legal firm saying its decision was aimed to “test the law”.
However, Sake24 reported that according to Patrick Bracher, a director at the legal firm Norton Rose Fulbright, the offer amounted to “incitement to commit a crime” and, according to Bracher, the Constitutional Court had already dealt with the question of the fairness of e-tolls in Gauteng.
“Somebody could be motivated by this to break a law while being under the impression that it is not a valid law,” said Bracher.
E-tolling on Gauteng highways will commence on 3 December.
