Public protector called to probe Sanral

Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) has lodged a subsidiary complaint with Public Protector Thuli Madonsela against the roads agency for alleged mismanagement of the Gauteng Open Road Tolling scheme.

This follows information provided by a whistle blower, who works for Kapsch, the Austrian company that collaborated with the roads agency to toll Gauteng’s roads.

The whistle-blower has made a series of allegations about the controversial system and is willing to be interviewed by Madonsela’s office to confirm the claims. Among the allegations, the whistle-blower suggested that similar tolling systems were planned for Cape Town and Durban.

According to Outa’s spokesperson John Clarke, the source confirmed “mismanagement stemming from Sanral having embarked on an extremely high-risk strategy to develop an electronic tolling infrastructure for the entire country, without testing key assumptions or engaging sufficiently with key stakeholders”.

Outa did not want to jeopardise the source’s position or prejudice the investigative process by elaborating further on the allegations, Clarke said.

“I can say that the complainant alleges abuse of power, dishonesty, maladministration and systemic problems in the risk assessment and management process within Sanral dating back to the tender process and commencement of contractual negotiations with Kapsch TrafficCom back in 2007/8.”

However, according to City Press, the allegations made to the alliance, which were then handed over to Madonsela’s office in an affidavit, suggested that the roads agency had ignored Kapsch’s recommendation that the risks of a national roll-out of e-tolling was “too high”.

Additionally, Gauteng motorists had been burdened with an additional cost of R2.5 billion because the road agency’s e-toll control centre in Midrand was designed to handle the monitoring of all national roads in South Africa.

The source further alleged that there were serious design flaws in the current e-tolling system. The road agency’s decision to use cameras and radio frequency receivers to read e-tags on every gantry is contrary to best international practice and was allegedly done against Kapsch’s advice and hiked the cost of the system significantly.

According to the newspaper, roads agency spokesperson Vusi Mona said the public protector had not contacted them about the whistle-blower or the affidavit.

“As such, we are not aware of the contents of the said affidavit,” he said.