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Summonses issued for e-toll nonpayments have increased nearly 20-fold over the past three years but collections are down, according to data supplied by the minister of transport to members of Parliament.
Transport Minister Blade Nzimande gave details on the number of summonses issued by the SA National Roads Agency since 2015, in a written reply to a question from DA MP Darren Bergman.
The reply showed that the number ballooned from 331 in 2015/16 to a whopping 6 626 in the 2017/18 year.
Moreover, Sanral’s contractor, the Electronic Tolling Collection Consortium or ETC, has incurred R4.6m in legal fees so far.
Collecting less than budgeted
In August this year, Treasury briefed the Standing Committee on Appropriations on financial position of several entities for the 2017/18 financial year, one of them being Sanral.
Treasury showed that so far, the entity had collected R5.6bn less in e-toll fees than budgeted.
Treasury’s deputy director general on public finance Dr Mampho Modise explained to the committee that the noise around e-tolls had affected Sanral’s performance.
Nzimande also previously told the portfolio committee on transport that the financing of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) was one of the biggest issues the department would be tackling. E-tolls were set up to help fund the GFIP.
"We will have to come up with a strategy of funding road construction and maintenance programmes on a sustainable basis," he told the committee.
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