OUTA says Gauteng govt owes South Africans an apology for e-toll failures
Government on Wednesday announced that the controversial e-tolling system will on Thursday midnight be officially switched off.
FILE: An e-tolls gantry on the highway in Gauteng. Picture: Abigail Javier/Eyewitness News
JOHANNESBURG - The Organisation of Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA), formed in 2012 as a means to oppose the e-tolling system, said government had yet to apologise for their failures around the scheme.
On Wednesday, government held a press briefing, announcing e-tolls would be switched off at midnight on Thursday.
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OUTA CEO Wayne Duvenage said government owed South Africans an apology.
“Neither SANRAL [South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd] or the Department of Transport apologised for the gross excess costs they have subjected to society on the high prices of the road construction.”
He said more importantly government, had yet to provide answers about allegations of gross misconduct and corruption around the e-tolling system over the years.
“They haven’t apologised for the ETC [Electronic Toll Collections] contact, which they told us was introduced for a five-year period and won by ETC in a tender process at R6.4 billion, when in actual fact they signed the contract for at R9.8 billion.”
BLUE LIGHTS AND CAMERAS ON GANTRIES REMAINING ACTIVE
Just over a decade ago, the Gauteng Freeway Improvement System gantries were switched on, resulting in waves of public outcry over the e-tolling system, but they will all stop when the e-toll system is officially switched off.
The blue lights and cameras on the gantries will, however, remain active as the Gauteng government and SANRAL plan to extend their capabilities of highway policing.
Come midnight, the sound of an e-tag registering your vehicle passing through an e-toll gantry will no longer exist.
But the gantry cameras and blue lights will remain on as part of plans to combat crime.
“The gantries can be utilised for also speed enforcement and many other things and that is the reason why we want the gantries to be kept and we will utilise them as the province,” said Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi.
Lesufi’s spokesperson, Vuyo Maga, previously told Eyewitness News that their plans were to establish a control room with access to SANRAL’s CCTV monitoring network.
“All the roads will possibly lead to the highway, and that’s where you have all the SANRAL cameras situated. So, working in that set up, that’s how we can fight back and deter crime.”
Lesufi recently signed a deal with VumaCam to access 7,000 CCTV cameras spread across the province.