Makhura under fire over e-tolls

GAUTENG opposition parties have accused Premier David Makhura of having lost the battle to scrap e-tolls.

They said any such move would negatively affect the pockets of some ANC bigwigs.

While the opposition parties were adamant that senior ANC members would benefit if e-tolls continued, none of them revealed the identities of the beneficiaries or provided any proof.

Jacob Khawe was the only ANC MPL who attempted to come to the premier’s defence.

He spent most of his allocated 15 minutes ridiculing the EFF and the calibre of their leader, Julius Malema.

Gauteng DA spokesman on transport Neil Campbell said Makhura had failed to give a precise response to the recommendations of the panel he had appointed to assess the e-tolls.

Relying on Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene’s Budget speech on Wednesday, in which he said e-tolls would remain, Campbell said: “One must again ask the question why Sanral, the national Department of Transport and the ANC outside of Gauteng are hell-bent on using the expensive gantries.

“There remain many unexplained clauses in the contract between Sanral and Electronic Tolling Collection (ETC) and Kapsch (Austrian maker of toll road systems) which defy logic.

“Who exactly is being enriched by the e-toll system?” Campbell asked.

The opposition parties also accused Makhura of making false claims that it was his government’s initiative to build mega settlements in areas such as the open pieces of land near Lanseria Airport while “knowing” that all of them were “private-sector initiatives”.

They also criticised the government for allegedly failing to deal with the housing backlog, estimated to be more than 800 000 units.

Housing MEC Jacob Mamabolo partly conceded to the criticism in his response. “It is a joint partnership between the government and the private sector. We are going to build houses side by side,” he said.

Gauteng DA leader John Moodey said the provincial government was unlikely to deliver on promises for houses, saying it did not even know how much land it owned.

“The premier indicated that his administration had consulted extensively with local governments and that land owned by the government would be used to prioritise development. The Department of Infrastructure Development does not as yet have a complete land asset register,” Moodey pointed out.

He accused the Tshwane metro of having sold land to the value to R500 000 in order to balance its books, saying it was on the brink of bankruptcy.

“The premier has promised

The premier is over-ambitious on housing units

to build no less than a total of 680 000 housing units within the next four years of the remainder of his term of office.

“Though I would like to believe that his intentions are genuine, this is an over-ambitious target, as historical evidence indicates that the province and local government together had on average built 30 000 RDP units per annum,” Moodey said.

EFF provincial leader Mandisa Mashego said her organisation would keep Makhura under constant watch to ensure that he delivers on the construction of 1.5 million houses before the end of his term.

While Makhura was expected to respond today, the EFF has vowed to start occupying vacant land, beginning on April 6 – to coincide with the arrival of the Dutch settlers under Jan van Riebeeck on the same date in 1652.