The SABC TV licence admission will kill e-toll user pays too

The “user-pays” principle has been shoved down the throats of South African motorists since the early ’80s, when the country’s first toll roads came into operation.

Then, users were prepared to pay, because the tolls were accurately calculated on a percentage of the money a driver would save – in fuel – and the fact there were alternative routes available.

However, in the current situation, where tolls of all descriptions are worked out based on repaying loans and making fat profits for toll route concessionaires, the “user-pays” idea has been distorted.

But with e-tolls, the principle has, in the minds of many motorists in Gauteng, become a sick insult. People already pay taxes and then fees to use the roads in the form of licences, as well as levies on fuel.

E-tolls on top of this is simply extortion.

Now that the SABC admits it cannot apply the “user-pays” principle to fund itself through licence fees, it has blown a huge hole in the “user pays” government mantra.

Opponents of e-tolls have long argued that a ringfenced Gauteng-only fuel levy would be a far more efficient, not to say fair, way of paying for the highways.

Maybe the government should listen to the radio…