Alliance against e-tolls looks to fight new battles
THE OPPOSITION to Urban Tolling Alliance is taking its fight against e-tolls and the government wastage of taxpayer’s funds to the next level.
Alliance chairman Wayne Duvenage said an initiative had been launched to establish a new structure involving other civil action organisations.
This followed requests “to expand our work into other areas where there is clear abuse of taxation and corruption that is resulting in reduced prosperity for the nation”.
Duvenage declined to name the entities involved but confirmed discussions had been taking place for several months and the new structure would probably be launched in the next few weeks.
He said there were entities that were concerned about the nuclear energy deal planned by the government and the alliance had other SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) issues to address in the Western Cape, the Wild Coast, Harrismith and Waterval Boven.
There were also concerns with the carbon tax. He said a carbon neutral company would still pay carbon tax, which would be extremely costly to introduce and was another inefficient tax that had nothing to with the green economy but “was about extracting more money out of business to swell government coffers”.
“We don’t necessarily want to be adversarial to government. We want government to embrace us and to help government to do its job and be honest by reducing costs, unnecessary tax, and the squander and waste of taxation,” he said.
He hoped the government would embrace groups such as his because the government “hopefully has the same agenda but we see a lack of attention to deal with corruption”.
“Civil society has to become the watchdog institution and litigator against government,” he said.
Duvenage said the alliance would today be launching a new fund-raising drive, which included a call centre, debit order facility and messaging campaign, to expand its member base and provide it with effective long-term funding.
The alliance previously indicated it would challenge any attempt to regulate e-toll payments through the renewal of vehicle licence discs.
Not letting go
Duvenage said the reason for the new fund-raising drive was that up until now the alliance had kept its costs low in the hope that the government would come to its senses and the illogical and unworkable etoll system would be scrapped.
“Clearly the message sent to us by Sanral and the Department of Transport with their plans going forward is that they are not letting go,” he said.
Duvenage said the alliance had to “entrench itself for a longer-term fight”.
It needed additional resources, a permanent structure and offices. He said he had been executive chairman on a voluntary part-time basis and had to come on board full-time but could no longer do it “for nothing”.
Duvenage stressed multiple civil action projects could be assisted by the alliance or the new entity without usurping the good work they were doing.
These entities had approached the alliance because of its experience and success in challenging the government and government policy, he said.
Duvenage said they had been trying to get business to come more on board but that businesses had been reluctant.
“Large business… has a propensity to stay clear of civil society movements that challenge government,” he said.