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Outa: Sanral guilty of business unusual

Cape Town - The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) has accused the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) of unfair business practices.

"Sanral is practicing ‘business disobedience’ by expecting users of the freeways to pay without affording them the courtesy of normal invoicing and billing procedures," it said in a statement on Thursday.

Outa said such ‘Stalinist’ tendencies and Sanral's aggressive and threatening approach to the public is doing them no favours.  

"Contractual obligations between parties in a business relationship need to be logical and reasonable," said Outa spokesperson John Clarke.

“This pay now and query later attitude by Sanral is unacceptable," he said.

Outa said it received over a thousand complaints from the public over the past three weeks.

"The veracity thereof has convinced us that Sanral’s billing process contains significant errors and problems, giving the public every right to reject their invoices from Sanral."

Outa also welcomed the disapproval expressed by National Consumer Commission (NCC) commissioner Ebrahim Mohamed about Sanral's response to queries from the public as reported by TimesLive on Thursday.

Mohamed was reported as saying that Sanral's payment demands, without giving road users the chance to query bills, amounted to improper practice.

The NCC announced on Monday that it would take up complaints about e-tolling, but that it should not be the first line of complaint.

"The NCC always encourages consumers to lodge complaints at the point of sale, and attempts to have their complaints dealt with there," he said at the time according to Sapa.

Mohamed said the NCC was not an adjudication body and did not have the power to declare an account invalid. However, it could refer the matter to the Consumer Tribunal, which had greater powers in this regard.


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