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Cape Town - South African Roads Agency (Sanral) general manager: communications Vusi Mona is out of touch with his own organisation’s reality and the numbers provided by their collection agency, according to the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa).
Outa was responding to Mona's comment on a statement by Outa which gives five reasons for what the civil rights body calls the failure of Gauteng's e-toll system.
In response to Outa's report to mark the second anniversary of e-tolls, Mona said in a strongly worded email that Outa disrespects the rule of law and in so doing undermines South Africa's constitutional democracy. "Outa breaks down – it does not build.
"They do not offer a viable alternative to combating congestion, addressing spatial legacies of apartheid, creating jobs, providing on-road services or a funding model that does not punish the poor," Mona said.
In what he called debunking Outa's numbers Mona listed several of Sanral's achievements with e-tolls in the past two years, including 1.2 million registered users of which approximately 500 000 belong to fleets and 80 000 to government vehicles.
In a statement on Thursday, Outa refuted Mona's claim that Outa breaks down and does not build. "Outa is a responsible civil intervention organisation that builds a stronger country by thwarting state-owned organisations from abusing their position of power without consequence," it said.
Outa disputed Mona's claim of 1.2 million registered e-toll users. It said Electronic Toll Collection chief operating officer Mark Ridgway was recently quoted as saying that a total of R5.9bn in e-tolls was outstanding at the 60% discounted rate in terms of the new dispensation, with 81% of the debt held by 17% or 518 000 account holders.
"Extrapolated, this means that there are 3 047 000 of the '3.34 million freeway account holders' who have not paid," according to Ridgway’s statistics, said Outa.
Turning to Mona’s claim that six courts have upheld e-tolls as being legitimate, Outa said this is incorrect as no court has produced any findings on the legitimacy of e-tolls.
"However, a court has found that the GFIP (Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project) toll roads were not legitimately proclaimed because Sanral did not provide all the information to place the minister of transport in a position to make an informed decision," said Outa.
It added that the courts also found that the N4 toll road to Mpumalanga was not proclaimed in a lawful way. This means that there have been at least two cases - and three times including Western Cape Winelands toll project - where the courts have found "that Sanral operates outside the very laws it wishes citizens to uphold", said Outa.
Mona’s admission that less than 1% of the outstanding e-toll debt has been collected (R40m of R5.9bn) in the first and most critical month of the six-month dispensation is a clear indication that the system has officially failed, said Outa.
Referring to what Outa called Mona’s "anxiety" about the anti-toll body's growing contributions from its public and business membership base, it said there were twofold reasons for this. The first is "out of principle and solidarity against the abusive extraction of the e-toll tax", while the second is because Outa offers motorists "the most potent defence against Sanral’s coercive tactics and threats of prosecution".
