Gauteng’s controversial e-tolling system has met with a veritable tidal wave of opposition from the public and labour groups to the extent that a six-month court interdict against its application has been granted and even the government may backtrack on its support of the programme.
Judge Bill Prinsloo has adjudged that Gauteng’s e-tolling system be put on hold thanks to an interdict brought forward by Outa (Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance) that urged a full court review of the system to decide whether or not it should be scrapped. Prinsloo’s judgement that Sanral’s (South African National Roads Agency) financial losses in the face of the interdict should be weighed up against the general public’s hardship should the project go ahead was met with a standing ovation, but what does such a decision hold for the future of road tolling and what are the potentially controversial alternatives?
Firstly, it pays to acknowledge that we’re talking about a serious amount of money at stake here. According to media reports, Sanral’s in-court defence of the e-tolling system cost R750 000 a day – the equivalent of roughly 14 RPD houses. Combine that cost with those of the advocates present for the 4-day hearing and the bill landing in the state’s lap already equates to R4 million, before anything e-toll-related has occurred.
The pressure from the aforementioned tolling opposition group [Outa] has been supplemented by vehement protests against e-tolling by Costau to the extent that the ANC, which was initially very much in favour of the system, appears to be backtracking on its initial stance and could put the knife in e-tolling in a bid to save face. Reports have emerged that although the ANC doesn’t want to be forced by the opposition, civil society and allies – through the courts – to shelve the project. Two senior ANC leaders and a senior government official have confirmed that the party is giving serious consideration to abandoning the project, but it was not in favour of an increase in fuel levies or licence fees to cover the associated costs.
It has, however, also emerged that the government may have to dip into funds allocated to education, healthcare and social welfare grants to foot the cost of ditching the e-tolling project – a decision that the government fears could destabilise the economy.
Flying in the face of such notions are the findings of such economists as Investment Solution’s Chris Hart and Standard Bank’s Goolam Ballim, who have dismissed claims that the interdict will destabilise government expenditure. According to Hart, such an idea suggests “a weakness in government expenditure that they (government) are not telling us about”. Hart went on to explain that the debt incurred by the delay in e-tolling implementation would only cost the government R2 billion – 0,2 per cent of total planned government expenditure. He goes on to claim that an immediately enforced 10 cents levy on fuel prices would cover the debt of not implementing e-tolling.
While the jurisdictional implications are yet to be ironed out, what do such developments mean to the average road-user? Basically, the court interdict will see the implementation of e-tolling held back for several months pending the main application for a review of e-tolling by the alliance being heard and judgment delivered.
Factor in threats of further court action on the part of the ANC’s ally Costau should the e-tolling system be implemented and it looks as though there’s a rocky road ahead of the e-tolling system…
