22 February, 2012 14:02
4 Comments

Helmo Preuss

Ambitious plan to reduce toll fees announced in Budget (With Audio)

The government will provide the SA National Roads Authority (SANRAL) with R5.8 billion to reduce its debt, so that the toll fees on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project highways could be reduced to 30c/km for light vehicles from the original envisaged 66c/km, Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan said on Wednesday.

Image: Gallo

He said SA needs to become a solidarity society so that the legacy of the past can be addressed and inequality reduced.  Speaking at a media briefing ahead of delivering the 2012/13 Budget, he said: "We need to move out of our comfort zone and ask ourselves ‘what am I willing to sacrifice’, as we cannot reduce inequality without sacrifice."

"Although the government has set out an ambitious infrastructure spending programme, the financing of it is manageable. So I trust you will join me in seeing the glass as being half full rather than half empty," Gordhan said.

The toll fee decision is part of this solidarity drive. "This budget has been crafted at a challenging but hopeful time. We have to say to our people that economic uncertainty will be with us for some time, yet we have a programme of economic change that can steadily roll back unemployment, poverty and inequality.

"It requires an extraordinary national effort from all role-players, committed not just to identifying the barriers to progress, not just to proposing solutions, but also working together, over the long haul" he said in his Budget speech.

Go to Budget 2012 Special Report



COMMENTS

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MoBlaq Feb 22, 2012

The idea shldnt be to reduce toll fees but to scrap them out totally.
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ODIN_EXPAT Feb 22, 2012

Tolling road transporatation without providing an alternative non road based public transport system is nothing other than holding all south africans rich and poor to RANSOM!!

Road tolls were brought in as a stealth taxation which is going to hurt the poorest the most!!!

Price of staple foods are going to rocket, wages are going to rocket. This is wrong in so many ways.

The ANC is not a party for the poor. They are a party bent on profiteering from their positions where they are supposed to be SERVING the public not FLEECING them.

To those who voted for the ANC..... you caused and allow this to happen!
To those who did not vote at all ..... you also caused and allowed this to happen!
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donorfatigued Feb 22, 2012

I see we are now being barraged with propaganda to try to make us believe that the tolls are a 'good thing' for this country and that we should not resist them!

No Sir - these tolls must be scrapped in their entirety and the gantries torn down - whether that tearing down should happen in an orderly way or otherwise!

As law-abiding citizens we have every right to vehemently protest this imposition, which will have the effect of driving up prices of everything (incl. fuel!) and in fact of making life impossible for many who have no alternative but to use the highways to make their living.

Our effective protest action is simple and involves no risk - simply boycott e-tags, the contract for which has already been declared declared unconstitutional and in breach of the CPA.

By doing so we will render the entire SANRAL business model financially unviable. They cannot possibly run their system except with our meek acquiescence in allowing them to bill us immediately and cheaply by electronic debits against our bank accounts.

The government consulted none of use when they decided to blow billions upgrading roads which did not need upgrading - let them find a better way to finance that mistake. Maybe sending fewer jets to shadow Zuma on his next overseas trips, or having fewer publicly-funded jollies might help!

The name 'Dick Turpin' comes to mind - he was a famous highwayaman, a robber who robbed innocent travellers on the roads of 18th century England - they hanged him by the neck until dead - let us hang this government sanctioned robbery by making sure their scheme is hanged!

I understand COSATU has a protest in the form of a stayaway or strike against the tolls scheduled for March 7th! This is what they have said:

"Tolling forces drivers to pay huge amounts of extra money just to travel on the province's highways. Workers will face having to pay out thousands hundreds of extra rands every month just to travel to and from work. Consumers face massive price increases as a result of the extra cost of transporting goods to the shops being passed on to the shoppers.

We urge the cabinet to take note of the mass opposition to these tolls and instruct Sanral to abandon them for good. Meanwhile we continue to urge motorists not to register with Sanral or buy e-tags, and our members remain mobilised for a campaign of mass action if e-tolling is not scrapped. The federation calls upon government to prioritise the roll-out of efficient, reliable, affordable and safe public transport for all the people of South Africa."

DO NOT BUY AN E-TAG! - this is all that is required to collapse this iniquitous and rapacious scheme.
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Yunus Feb 22, 2012

DO NOT BUY AN E-TAG!

They will start at 30c/KM and then escalate year on year to whatever god damn amount they can get away with ... lets not even get into the fact that the roads are not even worthy of 30c/km and wont be maintained properly but just to add insult they will continue toll us long after the loans are paid ...

I hope everyone is smart enough to know that if they DO NOT BUY AN E-TAG there is nothing they can do to you because this greedy scheme (because thats exactly what it is) ... was not thought through and there is no logistic measure that they could use to enforce it.
A clear indication that SANRAL think the citizens of this country are dumb yolks and would just accept whatever they say ...

DO NOT BUY AN E-TAG!