E-toll collector was a boycotter
HE BELIEVED IMPOSING TOLLING WAS MISGUIDED ETC head warns motorists to prepare for six-hour commute between Joburg and Pretoria if we don’t solve the problem.
Coenie Vermaak admits he didn’t like being taxed for something he had no decision over.
Coenie Vermaak, chief executive of e-tolls collections company Electronic Toll Collection (ETC), was an e-tolls boycotter in his previous life as an engineer working on Medupi Power Station and SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral).
Like 70% of Gauteng motorists, Vermaak believed the decision to impose electronic tolling was ill-conceived and done without proper public engagement. That changed when he was hired two years ago as ETC chief executive.
He said: “I was an e-tolls boycotter because I didn’t like being charged another tax for something that I had no decision over. But I was also ignorant ...”
ETC’s contract expires in December 2019, and will be put out to tender after that by Sanral.
Vermaak concedes it’s a tough task convincing nonpayers to follow his lead. With an election looming next year, e-tolls will become a key election issue in Gauteng.
In his medium-term budget policy speech, Finance Minister Tito Mboweni gave no sign of the state abandoning its fealty to e-tolls. He said e-tolls had to be paid if the road network was to function.
The project originally cost R22.5 billion, funded through the issue of bonds. That cost has escalated to more than R40 billion.
Sanral’s 2018 yearly report shows a finance cost of R4.4 billion at an average cost of capital of 9.43% a year. If Mboweni sticks to his guns, government will have little choice but to find an extra R500 million to R1 billion a year to pay the interest on these borrowings. Scrapping e-tolls could impact South Africa’s sovereign status and increase the cost of all state-backed borrowings.
ETC has been issuing about 4 000 summonses a month. By next month, about 18 000 summonses will have been issued.
Civil group Outa reckons only a quarter of these reach the intended recipients, and of the 1 400 who’ve given notice of their intention to defend, 1 200 are being defended by Outa.
How a critically backlogged justice system will cope with 18 000 additional cases remains to be seen. A political solution must be found. Vermaak points to a Gauteng road map and warns of the consequences of not solving the e-tolls issue: “Unless we get busy with Phase Two of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), which involves building 158km of new roads to redirect traffic away from the congestion areas, you better get prepared for a six-hour commute between Joburg and Pretoria. This is how long we project it will take by 2037 if we don’t address this problem urgently.”
Phase Two should have been well underway, but has been indefinitely postponed.
Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage says the solution is to convert e-tolled roads to nontolled roads and subsidise GFIP bonds with R2 billion a year from Treasury.
Tito Mboweni gave no sign of the state abandoning its fealty to e-tolls.