THE Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) is worried that government might have secretly renewed the e-tolls contract.
The non-profit organisation CEO, Wayne Duvenage, said the government’s failure to end e-tolls formally means the collection contract continues.
He said Outa has repeatedly called for finality and warned against extending the collection contract.
Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana announced the end of e-tolls during the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement (MTBPS) in October 2022.
Duvenage said, however, the South African National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) signed an extension to the e-tolls collection late in 2022 despite the government’s announcement.
The current extension is due to run out in mid-June 2023.
“Outa believes that these extensions are irregular and are unnecessary expenses. We call on the transport minister and Sanral to end the collections contract as unnecessary,” he said.
The Electronic Toll Collection (ETC) e-tolls collection agency is wholly owned by the Austrian company Kapsch TrafficCom AG.
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“Government promised that by the end of 2022, nearly six months ago, the end of e-tolls would be finalised. Here we are in June 2023, and nothing has changed,” said Duvenage.
“Government’s inability to implement its own decisions is at play here. We’ve seen this before, a lot is said, and nothing is done.”
He said the e-toll bills still go out monthly, and a handful of people pay.
“We call on the government to implement the decision they’ve made, once and for all, so that we can bring this debacle to an end,” said Duvenage.
Kapsch started collecting money on 3 December 2013 when the gantries went on for the first time.
Duvenage said the extension to mid-June indicates that another extension may be imminent if not already signed, which Outa believes is a waste of money.
He said the ETC contract usually links to the original starting date of 3 December 2013, so a contract from mid-December 2022 to mid-June 2023 would indicate a six-month contract.
“This indicates that this extension was probably signed after the announcement of the end of e-tolls,” added Duvenage.
