People’s revolt on e-tolls not over

It is difficult to feel sympathy for the ANC as it squirms publicly on the issue of e-tolls. That’s because they brought this whole mess on themselves. The misdirection and arrogant ways of former SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) chief Nazir Alli – who tried to ram the e-toll concept down the throats of Gauteng motorists (and would have done it elsewhere in the country, too, had he got his way in Gauteng) – are now returning to haunt the ANC.

Firstly, there was never anything like adequate public discussion about the decision from above that an electronic toll collection system was the only feasible way to pay for the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP). Had proper debate been allowed and civil society permitted to air its views, we might well have ended up with a specific, Gauteng-only fuel levy, “ring fenced” to pay for the roads.

A fuel levy of less than 20 cents per litre, implemented at the time the GFIP was made live in 2013, could have paid for the roads by now. But, of course, that would not have enabled the ANC government to pay an Austrian company billions of rands to collect the toll fees. That is another issue entirely, maybe one where we should “connect the dots”…

The government now proposes radically slashing toll fees to boost compliance from the current abysmally low level of 20% or less. But it will not work.

People don’t believe anything the government says on e-tolls and, no matter how low the fees are set, it is now a matter of principle more than anything else.

A fuel levy is still a simple, and eminently viable, funding option.

Anything else – from reduced fees to one-off tax levies – will only provoke more anger. And this successful “people’s revolt” could spread even further.