Joburg residents reject e-tolls
JOBURG - Residents are firmly against e-tolling and called for the system to be scrapped.
This was the general consensus of participants in a public hearing into e-tolls held in the Joburg inner city on 16 September.
Participants raised several issues with the system, including a lack of public consultation prior to its implementation, the lack of transparency by Sanral and the Department of Transport regarding the costs involved with the construction of the province’s highways, and the financial burden e-tolling placed on the public.
Gill Stewart, a resident, objected to the involvement of international companies such as Kapsch Trafficom, the Austrian maker of the system, in e-tolling.
“Parliament has breached its fiduciary trust by allowing any of the money from this whole mess – to put it politely – to go outside of South Africa in our present economic climate,” Stewart said.
She argued that the government had not explained fully why alternative forms of funding such as the fuel levy were not used.
She proposed that the money collected from traffic violation fines should be used for road maintenance.
“[The government] doesn’t enforce the full road traffic ordinance, they concentrate on speeding and going through red robots… If they actually prosecuted the road traffic ordinance, all the billions that they got from road traffic fines should be used to maintain the roads… all traffic violation funds should be used for road maintenance.”
She added that advocating the use of public transport to avoid e-toll charges was not an option until the city’s existing public transport, which she described as “appalling”, was significantly improved.
Zukile Ngobo of the South African National Civic Organisation’s Disability Desk said people with disabilities were forced to use private vehicles because public transport was not easily accessible and feasible. E-tolls placed an additional burden on the disabled, Ngobo said, calling for Sanral to grant people with disabilities an exemption from e-tolling.
Sasabona Manganye, an inner city resident, said he did not object to the user pay system as long as it was used correctly.
“I believe that a user pay system is an important principle of sustaining our state and it fiscus if used correctly… we have got nice roads in Gauteng… we must acknowledge that.”
Manganye said he had initially chosen to register for e-tolling but reassessed his decision when he discovered the costs to users.
According to Manganye, he only passed through e-tolls occasionally when visiting friends; however, within the first two months of the introduction of e-tolls he owed about R1 500.
“That indicated to me how much worse the situation would be for people that used those roads every day to get to and from work.”
However, Tilly Michaels said e-tolling had a double impact on parents who were also responsible for their children’s bills.
“I am saddled with not only my bill but the bill I have to pay for my daughter, who is a university student… we have to take care of our children and we can’t have them driving on alternative roads that are dark and unsafe.”
Some people offered alternative uses for the gantries, such as being used for traffic monitoring, including catching those responsible for speeding, reckless driving and unroadworthy vehicles. Others said the gantries could be used to trace hijacked vehicles.
