Be reasonable, this is the best – and only – way to go about it
THE RAGING debate about e-tolling on the inner Gauteng highways has moved beyond the rational to a point where reason has flown out of the window. Sane voices are being drowned out.
Those who are appearing before the Gauteng inquiry are from Gauteng. The voices of the rest of South Africa are not being heard.
By the way, the odd thing about the Gauteng inquiry – it was set up by those who were part of the initial planning and the decisions regarding e-tolling, that is the Gauteng province. The national government does not upgrade and toll roads in a province without provincial consent. In fact, the consent given followed a request from the provincial premier to the national Minister of Transport that the South African National Roads Agency Ltd (Sanral) take over the R21. The road was a provincial one until it needed to be upgraded and improved and this had to be done from Sanral’s budget.
Which raises a question: Why have the inquiry if you’re part of the process? But that’s a by the way. The most common cry, like that of a startled hadeda on the Highveld, is to go the route of the fuel levy. This is fundamentally flawed, clearly anti poor people and unfair. Despite this being pointed out time after time, this is not permitted to be part of a rational debate. Let’s take it in turn: The fuel-levy argument is flawed. The levy has not been ring-fenced for roads since 1988. It goes into the general tax pool, from which all expenses of all departments are covered.
The levy delivers just less than R44bn, which is about a billion less than the Treasury allocation for transport-related expenditure. Of this, Sanral get almost R12bn– not enough to cover what it has to do.
The roads agency needs R20bn above what is necessary to maintain national roads, which it manages, to catch up with the maintenance backlog and improve roads to an acceptable condition. For the rest of the roads in the country, the 97 percent outside Sanral’s writ, the figure is close to R200bn.
This does not take into account the further R120bn the agency needs for the capacity-related backlog in and around the metropolitan areas.
Obviously, the fuel levy does not deliver even an approximation of this total. Just up the fuel levy? To what? Double what it is? Even that is not enough. Triple it?
Imagine the outcry then. It would be hardest on the poor who no longer would be part of the e-toll exemptions for public transport as a result of which they do not pay on the inner Gauteng highways.
A higher fuel levy would mean more expensive taxi and bus rides, hitting those who can least afford it the hardest.
Poor people have not been asked what they think. The Gauteng review panel is listening to those who have the capacity to organise themselves and appear before it. The rest – most people – are silent.
What the inquiry is hearing is not the voice of the people but the voice of a minority of people.
The views of those who live outside Gauteng are also blithely ignored. If you live in Upington, for example, you may not want to pay, through a higher fuel levy, for roads in Gauteng on which you are unlikely to travel.
You have not been asked and will not be asked. Just imposing a fuel levy on all is clearly unfair.
Let’s try to be rational for once. The country needs good roads, and they cost money. The debate should really be about who should pay for them, and not just about the method of payment.
When you use water in your home, you pay for it. You use electricity, you pay for it. For the same reason, you should pay for the roads you use. The person in Upington who also pays for his own water and electricity, should not have to pay for Gauteng roads – he does not use them.
There are wider implications, too. Is it seriously being suggested that e-tolls should be scrapped, agreements with an international company abandoned and the billions be found in the general tax pool that were borrowed from to build the inner Gauteng highways?
What would that do to the country’s credit grading, particularly now that the trade gap is widening and the economy slowing. Borrowing costs would go up considerably, and we, the taxpayers, would have to cough up for it. Let go of the emotion. Be reasonable. The way to go is the way we’re going now.