E-tolls summons – no need to panic
JOBURG - The Organisation Uniting against Tax Abuse (Outa) said the public need not panic about South African National Roads Agency Limited’s (Sanral) recent announcements to issue civil summons against those who have refused to settle their outstanding e-toll debts.
The organisation said this was precisely what Sanral wanted to achieve by their recent statements.
Outa chairperson, Wayne Duvenage said they had been inundated with queries from the public regarding Sanral’s recent announcements. He added that Sanral would like to have the public believe that defaulters would shortly be receiving a summons to appear in court, but this was not the case as it was virtually impossible for them or the courts to do.
“We believe this latest action by Sanral is being driven by… the need to demonstrate to the ratings agencies that they can and will take action, following two years of threatening to do so,” he said. “Eventually, there comes a day when they would either have to drop the cause or decide to carry through with their threats. Sanral and the government have unwisely demonstrated their decision to press on with their failed scheme, which is akin to flogging a dead horse.”
Outa also raised the question of Sanral’s and Electronic Toll Collection’s (ETC) highly objectionable decision to ring-fence all unpaid e-toll debt incurred before September 2015 (about R14 billion), and to pursue this collection through contracts with private debt collection companies.
These debt collection companies stand to make large undisclosed amounts from all historic e-toll fees collected. “Outa commends the public on holding out and demonstrating to government and its agencies that they will not be bullied into compliance with an irrational and unjust scheme for the past two years,” said Duvenage. “We will bring our arguments of proof of an irrational, unworkable and unlawfully introduced scheme to the courts, if and when one of our contributing members is summonsed for non-payment of e-tolls.”
