The bell is tolling for e-tolls

The end of e-tolls is seemingly nigh as the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) has stopped issuing summonses to non-paying motorists and its collection contract with the Electronic Toll Collections (ETC) comes to an end this month with no new service provider appointed.

The contentious Administrative Adjudication of Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act on which e-toll fees collection were entirely reliant, according to the Justice Project SA, is also facing legal action that could result in sections of the Act set aside as unconstitutional.

It is set to come into effect in June.

Government is yet to make an announcement on the future of the electronic tolling system that has faced fierce objection from Gauteng motorists, with Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula saying the matter is out of his hands.

But Wayne Duvenage, chair of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), said there was no workable solution for e-tolls and Sanral’s delay in getting into a new collection contract – plus the fact that no single notice had been issued to defaulters in a year – said a lot.

“They have stopped sending summonses and the collection contract is coming to an end this month. What we can draw from this is that e-tolls will be scrapped.

“That means all those who have been paying have lost their money. Large corporates were the only ones paying e-tolls as they thought they were abiding by the law,” Duvenage said.

The e-tolls collection contract with ETC started in December 2013, expired in December last year and was extended for three months until the end of February.

ETC, owned by Kapsch Traffic-com, the Austrian company that built the e-toll system, was contracted at R9.9 billion to collect e-toll fees in South Africa.

In December, Sanral said it had received bids of up to R11.3 billion from Phambili joint venture Kusa Kokutsha and SAeTO, which did not list a bid amount and were being evaluated.

This month, the department of transport gazetted revised e-toll tariffs, effective 1 March.

This despite Gauteng motorists waiting on Cabinet to announce the future of the system, following President Cyril Ramaphosa’s instruction to Mbalula, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni and Gauteng Premier David Makhura to come up with a solution to the impasse.

In July last year, Treasury said the collection rate for the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) stood at R65 million per month, which Outa said was only 20% of the projected amount, with Sanral in need of R240 million each month to service the e-tolls debt.

But Howard Dembovsky, the chief executive of Justice Project SA, said government would rather cling to the e-tolls and kick the can down the road, saying one of the reasons Aarto was being pushed through was because the Act would allow e-tolls defaulters to be prosecuted.

“E-tolls are 100% reliant on Aarto for collection because it makes it cheaper to issue summons.

“All it will take is an e-mail, instead of the expensive registered mail, to issue summons. That will be followed up by another two notices and then you will not be able to renew your licence.

“Aarto will make prosecution a breeze,” he said.

He said this was one of the reasons they were challenging 34 sections of the Aarto amendment Act in court as unconstitutional and that the fact that Pretoria High Court Judge President Dunstan Mlambo had assigned three judges to hear the matter was proof it was not trivial.

Once in place, Aarto will result in drivers losing points and ultimately their licences for traffic offences.

But Dembovsky said the Act trampled on the basic right of innocent-until-proven-guilty and that was enough for the Act to be set aside.

“Imagine what would happen to the traffic justice system if this Act were to be set aside,” Dembovsky said.

– siphom@citizen.co.za

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