Business and motorists still receiving e-tolls bills, Outa says

Gauteng’s e-toll system remains intact and continues to bill motorists every day, despite comments to the contrary by premier Panyaza Lesufi, according to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa).

Duvenage was responding to Lesufi’s state of the province address on Monday in which he said that “e-tolls have been scrapped permanently in our province.”

“We have heard these comments that the decision has been made and the e-toll scheme is ‘on the verge of being scrapped’ many times over the past few years, and yet nothing has formally changed,” Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage said.

Finance minister Enoch Godongwana effectively ended the e-toll system in the October 2022 medium-term budget policy statement when he said the government would assume 70% of the SA National Roads Agency’s (Sanral’s) debt and that the Gauteng government would cover the remaining 30%.

Until the e-toll system is formally turned off, everything that Lesufi and others have stated on this issue remains just words, Outa said.

The organisation said there are still businesses and individuals who continue to pay their e-toll bills because they continue to receive invoices. Some businesses have continued to pay until a final decision to turn off the scheme’s billing system has been announced. Until that happens, theses businesses remain uncompetitive and subjected to unnecessary expenses, it added.

Outa called on the National Treasury, the minister of transport, Sanral, and the Gauteng provincial government, who are all party to this “never-ending imminent decision” to bring the system to a close “once and for all”.

“For finality to be achieved, Sanral must publish a gazette to amend the initial declarations of the Gauteng freeway network as tolled roads. This shouldn’t take longer than a few days,” the organisation said.

“Outa hopes that the minister of finance will announce the final closure dates in his budget this week so that motorists can put this saga behind them once and for all.”