Dithering over e-tolls is a waste of time — they have to go, finish and klaar

Three months ago, after a public spat between finance minister Tito Mboweni and Gauteng premier David Makhura that he described as unbecoming, President Cyril Ramaphosa ordered transport minister Fikile Mbalula to bring the two together to find a solution to the vexing e-toll saga. He gave them two months to resolve the issue.

A month after the deadline passed, the country is still waiting. Extracting a compromise from the two political behemoths who have publicly dug in their heels on so contentious an issue was always going to be too much to ask of poor Mbalula. Neither can concede without losing face. Makhura has staked his political career on getting rid of the e-tolls, and the public seems to be right behind him.

But it’s not as if the e-toll imbroglio is a new issue for Ramaphosa. Along with Eskom, it was one of the hot potatoes thrown his way by president Jacob Zuma when he was deputy president, and he utterly failed to come up with a solution. As a result, the ANC lost the two biggest metros in the country, Johannesburg and Pretoria, in the 2016 local government elections, and came close to losing the whole province in the general elections this year. The loss of the metros made a huge dent in party morale. It is doubtful that the ANC will be able to retain the country’s economic heartland if it does not scrap e-tolls. And losing Gauteng could be the beginning of a slide into oblivion for the ANC.

It is the lack of policy certainty or direction from the centre that led to the dustup between Mboweni and Makhura. But Ramaphosa should not have handed over such a burning issue to another minister. He should instead have taken charge of the matter himself, and given direction. Or he could have given the responsibility to bang heads together to his deputy, David Mabuza. But Mabuza is on record as saying he doesn’t think much of the finance minister.

It’s no surprise, however, that Mboweni, Makhura and Mbalula seem to be struggling to find a “solution”. There is no other solution other than the one staring them in the face: people won’t pay for those gantries. As far as the public is concerned, the issue has been settled. E-tolls must be scrapped. That struggle has been won. We’ve moved on.

You would have to be both blind and deaf, and have been crouching under a rock for the past 10 years, to not realise that the issue was thoroughly debated and put to bed some time ago. All that is required is for the government to sign the death certificate. Party leaders can squabble among themselves about what to do with the debt or the gantries, but that’s none of our business.

But maybe we can revisit the arguments for the benefit of the cave dwellers.

When the roads were renovated in the lead-up to the Fifa World Cup in 2010, the public was led to believe that the upgrades were one of the benefits of hosting the tournament. Which was a lie. It was only after the warm feeling of the World Cup had dissipated that the painful truth emerged: the neon lights shimmering from those gantries at night were about to burn our pockets. We were going to pay for what we thought was a bonsella.

The question is, why pick on Gauteng? The argument advanced is that we should pay because we have such excellent roads; it’s as though the other provinces have rutted paths that hark back to the ox-wagon age. Their roads are as good as those in Gauteng, if not better, and yet they’re not called upon to pay.

Any tax system, if it is to be credible, has to apply equally to all citizens. It should not discriminate against any of the country’s taxpayers. Gauteng, as far as the economy is concerned, is the goose that lays the golden egg; and they want to kill it.

But the biggest nonsensical argument prattled by government officials is the socalled user-pays principle, that is, people must always pay for the services they receive. It’s as if those who are refusing to pay e-tolls are freeloaders, keen to receive government services for free. Nothing could be further from the truth.

These are in fact the people who pay most of the taxes that keep this country going. But the government can afford to abuse them because it doesn’t depend on them to stay in power.

The fact is that people are already paying for the construction and maintenance of roads through the fuel levy. During this year’s budget speech, Mboweni hiked it yet again. If the government wants us to pay for e-tolls, or road tolls in general, it must scrap the fuel levy. It cannot have it both ways. We’re not its cash cow.

It is interesting that the user-pays argument doesn’t seem to apply when it comes to the townships. For instance, Soweto alone owes Eskom an estimated R27bn and the government has not lifted a finger to recover the money. If Soweto and many other municipalities were to pay their electricity bills, that would go some way to wiping out Eskom’s debt, which needs to happen to avert economic catastrophe. But that would probably require a change of government. The ANC is too cowardly to grasp the nettle.

The government should do the honourable thing and scrap this monstrosity. Any attempt to keep it or fudge it in whatever form would certainly mean the ANC will lose Gauteng in the next elections, which could set it on a slippery slope to perdition. But that probably won’t be a bad thing either.