Millions of Gauteng motorists dodge their e-toll bills

ORGANISATION for Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) members have to cough up for their e-toll bills, insists the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral), which is battling to get millions of motorists in Gauteng to pay up.

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters confirmed in Parliament that Sanral had more than 1.4million registered e-tag account holders, but there are more than 2.9-million accounts owing tolls.

It was in this context of sustained civil disobedience against etolling that Sanral was talking to Outa’s lawyers about the viability of a test case on e-toll exemption, Sanral said in a statement.

In March, Sanral said it would begin issuing summonses to motorists who failed to pay their e-toll bills, but Outa challenged the legality of the summonses. In September, Outa agreed that the issue was creating confusion.

Outa is defending 152 of its members who have received summonses. An agreement with Sanral could regulate how the claims against these members and other e-toll defaulters will be dealt with.

Outa chairman Wayne Duvenhage said Sanral’s statement was a matter of semantics, with the agreement stating that should members of the public who are Outa members receive a summons they would be brought under the umbrella of the test case.

“And it is not like they know who Outa’s members are,” he said.

In Parliament, Peters said in a reply to a question by DA MP Manny de Freitas: “Currently, there are just over 2.9-million accounts with a balance owing, however 1.2million thereof owe less than R500 each as at the middle of August.”

Peters also said the eNatis system was capable of identifying road users who had not paid tolls.

She referred to the refusal to pay e-tolls as “a white-collar crime … a crime nevertheless”.