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Cape Town – An anti-tolling group has called for Sanral’s tolling model to be scrutinised, after it announced plans to spend R1.5bn in upgrades at the Huguenot Tunnel and likely hike toll fees.
Wayne Duvenage, chairperson of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa), said in a statement on Thursday that the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) had made enough profit from tolling the tunnel over the past 27 years to fund the upgrade.
This follows an allegation by the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry on Wednesday that Sanral is using the Huguenot Tunnel as an excuse to recoup losses from its e-tolling campaign in Gauteng.
Regional manager for Sanral Kobus van der Walt told Fin24 on the sidelines of a site visit this week that toll tariffs are likely to increase should upgrades go ahead.
He said in a statement on Tuesday that the upgrade would form part of the N1-N2 Winelands Toll Highway Project and said initial cost of works on the overall project would be R10bn.
“The notion that Sanral should fund this project from its own resources is therefore uninformed,” he said. “This year we received a total allocation of R12.5bn to look after the entire national road network. Clearly we cannot take all of it to do one project in one province.”
Complete transparency needed
Duvenage said “there is a need for complete transparency on the financing of this project”.
He said Huguenot Tunnel users “have long since paid for this capital project and Sanral has earned billions of rands in profit from the ever increasing toll fees collected from motorists and users of the tunnel.
Rough estimations from people who have been monitoring the Huguenot traffic flows, put the tunnel’s toll revenues, after costs, at close on half a billion rand per annum at current tariffs and traffic volumes, explained Duvenage.
“If indeed this is the case or even at half this amount, there is no need for additional tolling fees or projects in the area to finance the Huguenot Tunnel upgrade,” he said.
Duvenage said road users have been overpaying at most of the toll plaza points in the country. “In most cases, it’s a situation of users grossly overpaying for these roads.
“The capital projects of many toll projects have long since been paid up, with the agency and its concessionaires having earned massive profits from the users, even after the maintenance and operational costs are deducted.
“This situation clearly suggests that the funds collected from many of the tolling routes are being used to cross-subsidise other projects, placing a serious question over the ‘user-pays’ principle being practiced by Sanral.”
