Refuse to pay e-tolls – Samwu
JOBURG - The South African Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu) has called for civil disobedience on e-tolls payment and has rejected the e-toll ‘”New dispensation” as presented by Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa this week.
Ramaphosa announced that the dispensation will include a monthly cap of R225 for light motor vehicles, while the cap for other vehicle categories would be determined at a later stage. In addition, there would be a 60 percent discount for motorists who have not paid since the inception of e-tolls in December 2013.
Samwu, an affiliate of the Congress of the South African Trade Unions, which is allied to the ruling party, the African National Congress, said the fact that the government had opted for a drastic reduction of 60 percent in arrears is indicative of the pressure the system is under as a result of civil disobedience.
The union’s national spokesperson, Papikie Mohale said, “No matter how enticing the government may want to be, we urge South Africans to vehemently refuse to pay a single cent towards this neoliberal project that seeks to privatise our country’s national roads.”
Mohale said their great concern was government’s attempt to coerce South Africans into paying e-tolls. He said they want to achieve this by forcing people to settle their e-toll bills before they will be allowed to renew their motor vehicle licences.
Mohale said, “Clearly this attempt would not work, but would instead result in unintended consequences such as a high number of vehicles with outdated licence discs. The government is actually creating more headaches for themselves.”
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When announcing the dispensations, the deputy president claimed they were a step towards addressing the needs of South Africans and that they were affordable. However, Samwu believed that, contrary to Ramaphosa’s claim, these dispensations would not in any way address the needs of South Africans, and said they remain unaffordable.
“The problem with this is that people who have been involved in these dispensations do not use their private vehicles, but rather State-provided vehicles and as such they do not have to pay a single cent towards them,” Mohale said, therefore, Ramaphosa could not claim to speak on behalf of South Africans.
“E-tolls do not only affect motorists, but also businesses which will definitely shift the extra cost of doing business to us consumers,” Mohale stated. He added that the continued refusal by government to scrap the system will affect the performance of the ANC in the local government elections in 2016, in particular elections within Gauteng.
