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Pretoria - South Africa spends less on road infrastructure than other countries, the transport department said on Tuesday.
Despite this, the country needed to ensure existing roads were maintained and better infrastructure put in place, transport department acting director general Mawethu Vilana said in Pretoria.
He was addressing the e-tolls review panel appointed by Gauteng premier David Makhura in July to examine the economic and social impact of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) and the e-tolling system to fund it.
Vilana told the panel good roads were essential for the economy and resulted in less traffic congestion. They not only affected businesses but people's private lives. Time spent in traffic reduced the time people could spend at home, he said.
Before the upgrade of Gauteng's highways, it took approximately two hours to travel between Johannesburg and Pretoria. This time had been drastically reduced since the roads upgrade.
Several groups opposed to the e-tolling system had proposed government should find other ways to fund the GFIP, such as a fuel levy.
Vilana said this was not a viable option, as the price of fuel would need to increase by around R3.65 per litre to maintain the existing infrastructure.
Earlier, Transport Minister Dipuo Peters told the panel the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) was not to blame for the largely-rejected system.
"At its core, the GFIP was approved by Cabinet in 2007 to rehabilitate and improve road infrastructure in Gauteng," said Peters.
"The decision to implement the GFIP with its chosen funding mechanism was taken after a thorough consultative process and its implementation was in compliance with appropriate legislation."
She stressed that government had postponed the implementation of the system twice and held public consultations. She said the project would not affect the poor as public transport was exempt from paying tolls.
Sanral and the transport department would make their presentation to the panel over the next three days. The panel would present its findings to Makhura at the end of the month.
