Does Sanral’s new tender finally signal the end of e-tolls?

A new e-toll tender might have caused some confusion among ordinary South Africans, but lobby groups are hopeful that the contract’s proposed system repurposing element is the first indication of an end to the contentious Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project’s (GFIP) user-pay principle.

The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) has invited contractors to vie for takeover of its failed e-tolling and potentially implement value-added systems, including selling data already collected via e-tolling, as well as a speed infringement system.

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All attempts to get motorists to pay have failed, with the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) saying the agency was only able to collect 15% of the R300 million it projected to collect from motorists per month.

This has rendered the system unworkable, which the organisation said has left Sanral with no option but to find alternative uses for the system to recoup what has been lost.

Useful data

The organisation said the national roads agency already possessed massive data that could be useful to property developers and other corporate bodies.

Also, whilst municipal and provincial authorities are responsible for road infringements on their respective jurisdictions, Outa said Sanral is responsible for monitoring road infringements on national roads.

“Sanral is managing road traffic violations on the national road network … this is a national road network and they do have powers in that regard. People are speeding in different jurisdictions,” Wayne Duvenage, the organisation’s chief executive officer, said.

He said the national roads agency, through its gantries, already possessed massive data that could be useful to property developers in terms of how many vehicles got on and off at a particular off-ramp and the size of vehicles.

Government has been indecisive on announcing the future of the widely rejected Gauteng e-tolling system, with Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula in June saying the pronouncement would be made in October during Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana’s medium-term budget policy statement.

ALSO READ: Scrap e-tolls already so we can move on

Paltry collection

According to Duvenage, there was no way any contractor could collect from millions of motorists who simply refuse to pay and that this is surely the end of the road for e-tolls.

He said the only sensible determination on the future of e-tolls was for them to be scrapped and the gantries to be used for something else.

“They cannot collect the money. So, we think the tender has to do more with repurposing the use of those gantries for average speed over distance and monitoring traffic fines. We do not think it is focused on e-toll collection, unless you use the tag to go through long-distance toll. That is not an e-toll scheme,” Duvenage said.

Sanral spokesperson Vusi Mona, who could not be reached for comment, earlier told Moneyweb that procurement processes would progress as planned and that all necessary prescripts would be adhered to if there were any developments on Cabinet’s decision on the future of the e-tolls.

Baffling

The Automobile Association of South Africa (AA) said it is baffling that the deadline for the submission of bids for the contract was more than a month before government’s pronouncement on the fate of the e-tolls system.

Spokesperson Layton Beard said the fact that there was a new tender for the management of e-tolls when there was no clarity on the future of the system was worrying.

He said the announcement on e-tolls will be made in the first week of October but the current tender expires on 7 September, asking how does one tender for a project that government was still to take a position on.

“It could mean that the government has made the decision but has not shared it with the public. There have been various deadlines missed in making the decision … there has been a lot of speculation but no movement from government on the way forward,” Beard said.

ALSO READ: Fate of e-tolls on the table but yet to be approved – Mbalula

He said their position has always been that Gauteng motorists have taken a principled decision not to pay e-tolls and will continue not to pay, and echoed Outa’s sentiments that no business could survive such a low collection rate.