E-tolls: taking lies to a whole new level
Last week the transport department and SA National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) “engaged” Gauteng’s e-tolls committee. Two things stood out: the transport minister threatening to withdraw from the process because a legal expert wanted to “take on” Sanral CEO Nazir Alli and the minister, followed by acting director-general of transport, the department of transport spokesperson and finally Alli all coming up with different figures for a fuel levy.
They acutely highlighted the attitude adopted since before e-tolls came into being. Instead of “dispelling the misinformation spread by e-toll detractors” – the stated intent of talking to the panel – they managed to take it to a whole new level in demonstrating their arrogance and readiness to spread misinformation.
The fuel levy issue was the most conflated. Both the minister and DG referred to an additional R3.65/litre levy, and the spokesperson for the transport department tried to counter this by saying it was a total, not additional, amount. He said the additional sum would be R1.55/litre.
I saw DG Mawethu Vilana telling journalist Chantal Rutter an additional levy of R3.17/litre or R3.65/litre would be required when he spoke about this on ANN7 last Monday night. Apparently so did Alli, because the next day he told the panel an extra R3.69/ litre would be needed and “Sanral would be happy to get that”. It appears the players didn’t agree beforehand at which level to set the lie and ended up contradicting one another.
An extra R3.69/litre levy would generate R85 billion a year based on 2013 fuel-volume sales, and this would address the backlog on maintenance and road building countrywide. It has little to do with the current Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), which Justice Project SA calculated would require an extra 14c per litre fuel levy to settle the R22 billion debt and maintain the GFIP.
The panel is reviewing e-tolling’s socioeconomic impact and is acutely focused on the current GFIP. The transport department and Sanral are trying to use the panel to address all road infrastructure issues throughout South Africa.
So who exactly is peddling “misinformation and lies”?