‘It’s a farce’: Outa on Lesufi’s plan to scrap e-tolls

Newly-appointed Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi on Friday said the scrapping of e-tolls will be one of his priorities.

While announcing his team of MECs, Lesufi said new Finance MEC Jacob Mamabolo has been tasked with drawing up a clear plan to rid the province of e-Tolls.

He said Mamabolo will need to introduce new ways for the province to generate revenue to clear Sanral’s e-toll debt.

“To move quickly to scrap e-tolls, we need that new revenue model,” Lesufi said.

Wayne Duvenage, the CEO of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), has since said Lesufi’s comments are a “farce”.

“It’s quite strange. Mamabolo was the Transport MEC under [David] Makhura’s premiership and he was also tasked [with scrapping e-tolls] then,” said Duvenage during an interview on eNCA.

He said the Gauteng cabinet doesn’t have the authority to make a decision on e-tolls.

“Sanral is a national roads agency, it is financed through national funding mechanisms. It is not a decision that can be attributed to the province,” said Duvenage. “It’s a little bit of a farce.”

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A decision on the future of e-tolls is expected to be announced during the tabling of Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s medium-term budget speech on 26 October. However, Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula had promised e-toll decisions would be announced at previous budget speeches, which never materialised.

Duvenage said Lesufi might be hoping to get credit for a national government decision.

“I think they know a decision is coming this month and they might say it was a result of Lesufi’s decision to task Mamabolo with the matter.”

“It really is hot air and meaningless talk.”

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