Impact of scrapping e-tolls damaging to future road infrastructure development: Godongwana
Political parties on Thursday slammed the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) and government for what they said had been an ill-conceived scheme from the start.
FILE: An e-tolls gantry on the highway in Gauteng. Picture: Abigail Javier/Eyewitness News
CAPE TOWN - Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana has warned of the impact of scrapping the controversial e-tolls on the future development of road infrastructure.
Political parties on Thursday slammed the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) and government for what they said had been an ill-conceived scheme from the start.
Their criticism comes as the National Assembly approved a R5 billion special appropriation to help SANRAL pay debt associated with the non-payment of e-tolls.
In 2022, the government gave SANRAL almost R24 billion to help it with its debt.
Now the Gauteng provincial government will cough up R3.5 billion of this latest allocation - which Godongwana insists is not a bailout.
"We’ve been told to remove the e-tolls because it’s anti-poor. When you remove it, and take away the debt, it’s anti-poor. I don’t know what we should do, that’s not anti-poor."
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Action SA’s Alan Beesley has questioned how much of SANRAL’s more than R28 billion debt is due to corruption and incompetence.
This is while the Freedom Front Plus’ Wouter Wessels says the bailout is a result of a legacy of bad choices.
Rise Mzansi’s Magashule Gana said his party was reluctantly supporting the SANRAL bailout to avoid dire consequences if it didn’t.
Godongwana says scrapping e-tolls will most certainly have pitfalls down the line.
"A key fundamental principle which will cascade into other infrastructure projects, is the user-pay principle. We may be happy and celebrate but the effect of it is the delivery of infrastructure will not be as fast as it should [be]."
The chairperson of Parliament’s appropriations committee - Mmusi Maimane - has called for a full briefing on SANRAL’s debt - which Godongwana has agreed to.