The roads agency was given seven days to respond to a memorandum that was handed over during a protest outside Sanral’s head offices in Pretoria on 18 October.
Protesters torched their unpaid e-toll bills on top of an empty coffin on which was written ‘RIP e-tolls’, while singing the national anthem.
The protesters’ demands included an investigation into the e-tolls contract.
Prior to the protest, the trade union federation’s Gauteng secretary, Dumisani Dakile, accused Sanral of abusing more than R20 billion on upgrading the province’s highways without consulting the public.
“We could call this action of Sanral as selling our public roads to the highest bidder and to monopoly capital without caring about our country and its people,” he said.
Sanral’s northern region manager Ismail Essa received the memorandum and said it would be given to the road agency’s CEO Nazir Alli, its board and the Minister of Transport Dipuo Peters.
Essa said Cosatu’s demands, including an investigation into corruption in the system’s implementation, would be taken seriously.
However, Dakile threatened to intensify further protest action if the roads agency did not respond to their demands.
“We will come here next time and it won’t be as peaceful as today, we mean business.”
Earlier, a Cosatu-led 50-vehicle convoy, joined by bikers and taxi drivers, embarked on a drive-slow from the trade union federation’s headquarters in Joburg to Sanral’s offices.
The convoy, which was travelling at about 30km/h on theM1 north, created a traffic jam with only one lane out of three left open.
Protesters brought some areas of the highway to a standstill by getting out of their vehicles to sing and dance and hand out stickers to passersby.
However, while some motorists travelling along the route hooted and cheered and slowed down to collect anti-e-toll stickers, others expressed their frustration.
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