Faizel Patel – 27/05/2021
The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) says it believes a decision on the controversial e-tolls system has been made and an announcement will be made soon.
Outa’s Wayne Duvenhage was speaking to Radio Islam about the comments by Gauteng transport MEC Jacob Mamabolo telling a mainstream radio station on Thursday that e-tolls had already been scrapped.
However, acting minister in the presidency Khumbudzo Ntshavheni said that the national government is still applying its mind on the issue of the scrapping of e-tolls.
Duvenhage says Outa believes that national government had gone through the decision making and going to make an announcement imminently.
“We believe they have made a decision. So for the minister to now say ‘no we are still deliberating and looking at the various options’, well there’s something wrong when they say they are going to make an announcement imminently, but they haven’t even made the decision yet. They are now really sowing confusion.”
Duvenhage says while Tito Mboweni has on more than one occasion said that he is opposed to the scrapping of e-tolls, the finance minister is allocating money to the South African National Road Agency (SANRAL) to bail out the e-toll system from due non-payment by motorists.
“It all very for him to say well I want the user-pay scheme to apply, but he’s not running it. He can’t even see and I don’t know why because he should be able to see that it’s not a user-pay scheme. They’re paying more to collect the money now than they get in. So it doesn’t make sense because no money is going to settle the bonds, he knows that, so he’s making hollow statements.”
Duvenhage says only 15% to 18% of motorists are actually paying the e-toll bills.
Sanral launched the e-Tolling project in 2013 as part of the plan to improve the road network in Gauteng.
Listen to the interview with Wayne Duvenhage
0 Comments