THE END OF E-TOLLS: AN ELECTION PLOY
The controversial e-toll system that caused an international incident for South Africa is now history. Who can forget then president Jacob Zuma lecturing a Gauteng audience in October 2013 on etolls? “This is Johannesburg, it’s not some national road in Malawi,” he said in response to questions about the unpopular system imposed on the province by his administration.
It resulted in the Malawian government summoning the South African high commissioner for an explanation. The government had to apologise for Zuma’s tactlessness.
Here we are 11 years later and the e-toll gantries are set to be turned off in a week’s time, on April 11. This comes after more than a decade of bitter noncompliance from Gauteng motorists and a defiance campaign spearheaded by the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa).
The move comes ahead of a crucial election for the ANC, one in which the party in Gauteng is likely to lose its majority. The implementation of e-tolls in 2013 effectively contributed to the ANC’s electoral support dipping nearly 10 percentage points in the province in the election the next year, from 64% in 2009 to 53.5% in 2014. It has been downhill since then; the party narrowly kept control of the province in the national election in 2019 with 50.1%.
It’s a convenient election gimmick for premier Panyaza Lesufi to proclaim the end of e-tolling just a month before the polls.
He is like the player that comes on as a substitute for the goal scorer in the last two minutes of a football game and celebrates the victory as his own at the final whistle.
The battle was fought valiantly by motorists, Outa, Cosatu, the SACP and opposition parties for years before he came on the scene.
It was a political decision by Zuma to ignore the pleas of the Gauteng leadership back when protests against the system peaked — the provincial ANC at the time was the main opposition to his presidency. Its electoral losses were laughed at by his backers among the ANC’s stronger provinces such as the Free State and KwaZulu-Natal; it was a “serves them right” kind of vibe. Now, as the ANC nationally faces a threat to its electoral majority, every vote in every province counts, which is why the national government has finally buckled — even the National Treasury, the most ardent proponent of the user-pay principle, has endorsed the scrapping of e-tolls.
But does that mean there will be no further cost to South Africans? Absolutely not.
The money that will be used to pay roads agency Sanral’s debt will come from taxpayers — citizens will still foot the bill for the ill-conceived system.
The Gauteng government has undertaken to pay 30% of Sanral’s debt. It also has to fork out to maintain the 201km stretch of e-tolled highway at roughly R3.1bn per year.
The move should be seen for what it is: a convenient point-scoring exercise ahead of a crucial election. The money will continue to come from the tax base, one way or another.
The user, in the end, will still pay.