The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) has lashed out at the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) for what it says are "simplistic and ignorant" views around the use of fuel levies for funding road infrastructure.
This comes in the wake of statements made by Sanral CEO Nazir Alli and the road agency's spokesperson Vusi Mona regarding the fuel levy, during campaigning in KwaZulu-Natal and the Western Cape over the past few days.
Sanral argues that the notion of a fuel levy to fund the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) - which e-tolling was introduced to fund - is untenable and unfair. In September, the roads agency placed advertisements in national newspapers claiming a fuel levy is "just not sustainable".
Outa chairman Wayne Duvenage says Mona's arguments about the "supposed unfairness" of using the fuel levy fund for road construction reveals a great deal more than he intended. "He clearly does not understand fiscal budgeting and long-term financial planning.
"In Mona's attempt to talk down the fuel levy as a funding mechanism for road infrastructure, he was quoted as saying that about R42 billion was collected (annually) by the treasury from the fuel levy nationally. Sanral receives an allocation from that. While that is indeed so, he then went on to say that 'because the GFIP cost R20 billion, it would be unfair to the rest of the country for 50% of the fuel levy to be spent on Gauteng'.
"No one has ever said or expects that the entire cost of the GFIP should be paid for in a single year. The loan amount needs only to be paid off over a 20-year period, which works out at R1.9 billion per annum (including interest), which is less than 5% of the annual income from the fuel levy."
Levy increase
Duvenage adds that Mona and Alli both previously said revenue from designated fuel levies were declining worldwide, due to improved engine technology and fuel-efficiency.
"What extraordinary logic is that? While the quality of engine technology may be improving, the ever-increasing quantity of motor vehicles using the roads continues to push the fuel levy yield up," says Outa spokesperson John Clarke.
"Moreover, in the past three years since the completion of the GFIP, treasury has increased the fuel levy by 31%, to R2.34 per litre, thereby accumulating another R12 billion per annum into government coffers, enough to effectively finance five new freeway improvement projects of R20 billion each - without the need for added costs of e-toll collections.
"The best that can be said of Alli's utterances in Durban last week and Mona's claims made in Cape Town this week, is that Sanral have helped do what Outa was planning to do anyway - alert KZN and Western Cape residents to the national implications of the Gauteng e-tolling."
Outa recently received information from what it says is a "reliable source close to the system", confirming speculation that Sanral's ambition was always to extend e-tolling throughout the country.
"We have learned that the Midrand Central Operations Centre was planned and built to cater for thousands of kilometres, not just the 187km of the GFIP - and now ranks as the second largest storage array in the Southern Hemisphere," says Clarke.
"This completely contradicts advocate Jeremy Gauntlett's recent argument in the Cape High Court that 'the type of e-tolling facilitated by the collection method envisaged by the amendment Bill is, and remains, highly unusual. It is only appropriate in very confined circumstances'. Alli has yet to explain the contradiction between what his counsel argued in court and the clear intention to take e-tolling way beyond the confines of Gauteng."
According to The Star on Monday, existing toll plazas in Kwazulu-Natal are being equipped to accept e-tags as Sanral prepares for the national rollout of e-tolling.
The paper says Alli declined to say when e-tolling would be implemented in the province, but said the N1 from Johannesburg to Cape Town was "likely to be next".
Meanwhile, the Western Cape High Court is expected to make the call today on whether the E-toll Act is constitutional and can continue to exist as is. This comes about two weeks after the Democratic Alliance spent two days in court arguing the Act had not been through the right channels.
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