End of the road for e-tolls
SOPA: BOLD PLANS FOR GAUTENG INCLUDE BUYING UP PRIVATE HOSPITALS
Motorists who pay don’t know if their refunds also form part of ‘history’.
The formal process to switch off and delink e-tolls on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) will begin on 31 March, Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi announced on Monday night.
Delivering his State of the Province Address (Sopa), Lesufi said e-tolls will then “be history in our province”.
Lesufi did not provide any details on whether motorists who have paid their e-tolls would be refunded, as he previously indicated, or where Gauteng would obtain the finances to pay for the province’s portion of the e-toll debt or for the future maintenance of the GFIP network.
He confirmed on Monday night that meetings were held with all affected parties, including Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana and Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga, and “all of us have now reached an agreement that by 31 March 2024 the formal process to switch off and delink e-tolls will begin and e-tolls will be history in our province”. That meeting is believed to have took place on 26 January.
Lesufi said Godongwana “will elaborate on this subject” without indicating when, but presumably in his budget speech today.
The discussions over the scrapping of the GFIP e-tolls follow Godongwana stating in his medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS) speech in October 2022 that to resolve the funding impasse over the GFIP e-toll scheme, the Gauteng government had agreed to contribute 30% to settling Sanral’s GFIP debt and interest obligations, while national government covers 70%.
Lesufi subsequently confirmed in November 2022 that the total amount to be paid by the provincial government was R12.9 billion – 30% of R43 billion.
Godongwana said at the time Gauteng will also cover the costs of maintaining the 201km and associated interchanges of the roads while any additional investment in the roads would be funded through either the existing electronic toll infrastructure or new toll plazas, or any other revenue
source within their area of responsibility.
In the MTBPS, R23.7 billion was allocated to Sanral to pay off government-guaranteed debt, but this allocation was conditional on a solution to Phase 1 of the GFIP.
In an exclusive interview with Moneyweb in October last year, Lesufi denied saying that motorists who had paid their e-tolls would be refunded.
He added that the Gauteng government decided to take over GFIP national roads, which is normally Sanral’s responsibility because, if it did not, the debt would keep ballooning without there being a way to stop it.
He confirmed that among issues they had been working on was the possibility of responsibility for the GFIP national roads being transferred back to Sanral at some point in the future and an additional allocation to the Gauteng government from National Treasury to manage and maintain the GFIP national roads.
New number plates for all provinces
Lesufi also provided an update on the planned new vehicle number plate system for Gauteng. He said stolen and hijacked cars are central to crimes that are committed in Gauteng, adding that the majority of these vehicles use fake and duplicate number plates.
“Fortunately, the current number plate system that we have is running out of numeric letters, and we need to introduce new number plates in our province so that we can strengthen our fight against crime. The Department of Transport has developed a draft legislation to ensure that this introduction is common across all the nine provinces,” he said.
It is believed that Gauteng will from 1 April pilot the new number plates, which include a track and trace system
Zama zamas
He claimed they have “broken the backbone” of zama zamas (illegal miners) in Gauteng.
Lesufi said this followed a meeting he had with President Cyril Ramaphosa, which resulted in the deployment of about 800 soldiers to assist in the task from November last year to January this year.
He said these soldiers ensured that all the zama zamas have been displaced, with 840 zama zamas arrested and deported and almost 2 000 removed from Boksburg, Dobsonville, Kagiso, Khutsong, and Krugersdorp.
Hospitals for National Health Insurance
Lesufi urged Ramaphosa to sign the National Health Insurance bill so that everyone can have access to quality health care in Gauteng.
“We are ready to improve our hospitals. With the assistance of Workers Investment Portfolio, we have just signed an agreement that will see the Gauteng government buying 18 private hospitals in our province, and we will convert them to public hospitals so that we are ready for the National Health Insurance.”
Power plans
Lesufi said Gauteng is also working on plans to eradicate load shedding in the province.
He said it is ready, from 1 April this year, to release 100MW of electricity back to the grid through its partnership with City Power, and in the next financial year will increase this to 300MW.
He announced that the longterm plan with the Sibanye-Stillwater board has resulted in the approval of the land leases of the six independent power producers (IPPs) that will develop a photovoltaic power station in Merafong Local Municipality.
“This is designed to harvest at least 800 megawatts of solar power and supply it to the electricity grid, which will be a game changer for our province,” said Lesufi.
Meanwhile, Western Cape Premier Alan Winde said during his Sopa on Monday that almost R7 billion in total will be spent over the next three years to make the Western Cape energy resilient.
He said this amount is made up of more than R1 billion from the province, R3.9 billion from the City of Cape Town and R1.9 billion being spent by other municipalities across the province to enable the private sector and households to find solutions.