E-toll ‘consulting’ a never ending story

There is a wise old saying that a boxing contract isn’t worth the paper it’s printed on.

That seems to ring true in the world of e-tolls too. It doesn’t matter when who says what to who, at the end of the day it means zilch. After all that has been said e-tolls are still loud and clear on all our highways and the bills keep on coming even if the printing on the paper almost outweighs the sometimes ridiculous amounts of a few rand it is demanding from the road user.

In the latest round of this never-ending nightmare it has emerged the total Sanral collected for the 2018-2019 financial year fell by 63% to R687.7 million. And better yet, all the relevant parties are still what they call ‘‘consulting’’ which could easily be interpreted by gatvol tax payers as another word for doing nothing.

Even though Gauteng Premier David Makhura has been very outspoken against the system, he too has seemingly back-tracked slightly as his spokesperson Vuyo Mhaga told The

Citizen on Sunday that “we are giving consultation a chance”.

To make matters worse, the task team consisting of Makhura, Minister of Transport Fikile Mbalula and Finance Minister Tito Mboweni have missed their August deadline to come up with a viable solution. Mbalula has reportedly asked for more time and that they are – you guessed it – in ‘‘consultation’’ with interest groups. Outa (Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse) is said to be one of these groups, but Sanral CEO Skhumbuzo Macozoma doesn’t seem to have any time for them according to Moneyweb.

He said that it was “time government and the citizens of SA hold Outa to account for the civil disobedience campaigns contributing to the longterm destruction of critical road infrastructure’’. So in other words, it’s Outa’s fault that the majority of highway users refuse to pay e-tolls.

So when tax payers get gatvol – and rightly so – the group representing them is in the cross-hairs. And it is clear that squashing this little bug that stands in the way of more toll debt collection outweighs any chance there might have been to hear them out. There is a good reason why people are gatvol, bad luck to the collector who ultimately bears the brunt when their patience finally runs out and they get a lifeline in the form of Outa.

Maybe, just maybe, after years of ‘‘consulting’’, someone will wake up and smell the coffee. If there is a penny left to brew some coffee that is.