Faizel Patel, Radio Islam News, 2014-04-03

Is SANRAL in trouble?

Retrenchment appears to be on the cards for several South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) employees apparently over financial problems at the roads agency.

A letter seen by Power FM circulated to Sanral staff last week said the project is bloated and that retrenchments are a reality that cannot be avoided.

But the roads agency says it’s not aware of the letter and that it’s not struggling financially, does not need a bail out and that the system is not about to collapse.

Staff will be allowed to voice their opinions on the matter as well as raise their concerns to the organisation next week.

It comes amid revelations that Gauteng motorists have run up more than half a billion rand in overdue fees since the province's e-tolling system started on December 3 last year, according to Transport Minister Dipuo Peters.

Less than 10 percent of this has been paid.

"I am informed that… as at March 1 [this year] an amount of R543,544,574 worth of invoices were transferred to the VPC [Violations Processing Centre]," she said in written reply to a parliamentary question.

The VPC is the debt-collection division within Sanral responsible for the collection and processing of overdue e-toll transactions.

Contacted for comment on Wednesday, Sanral spokesman Vusi Mona said the R543.5 million included both those motorists with e-tags who had overdue accounts, as well as those who had not registered but were picked up by the tolling system.

"It is those people who have amounts outstanding, whether registered or not," he said.

Mona could not immediately say what percentage of Gauteng motorists had registered to date.

In her response to the parliamentary question — posed by Democratic Alliance MP Ian Ollis — Peters also revealed that "an amount of R54,735,638 (excluding VAT) has been expended in the collection of the debt".

This figure included R32.8 million "for postage and printing of invoices" and a further R21.9 million for "the cost of debt collection processes".

However, responding to a second parliamentary question, Peters said of the total of R543.5 million transferred to the VPC, only R50,043,487, or 9.21 percent, had been paid as at February 28.

According to the letter received by the Sanral employees, those impacted will receive retrenchment packages of one week for each year of service and the retrenchment begins at the end of April with some facing an uncertain future.

An employee of the company who wants to remain anonymous says some retrenchments have already started in other departments.

The letter suggests all staff could potentially be affected by the retrenchments and that consultations that will be held next week will affects staff across all departments.

It further says the current staff compliment is in excess of what Sanral requires and that there is no other option but to cut down the number of employees.

By the end of February the company announced that out of the 2.5 Million users of the freeway just over a million had registered for e-tolls.

(Twitter: @Faizie143)