Stakeholders have welcomed the Cape Town High Court ruling that a controversial tender awarded by the SA National Road Agency (Sanral) to toll the N1 and N2 in Cape Town be set aside.
The tender for the Winelands Tolling Project had been awarded to the Protea Parkways Consortium. Last month, the City of Cape Town argued in court that the process undertaken by Sanral to declare portions of the N1 and N2 as toll roads was improper and unlawful.
Judges Ashley Binns-Ward and Nolwazi Boqwana yesterday agreed with the city.
Following the ruling, the city, in a statement, said the verdict was a "resounding victory" for the residents of Cape Town and the Western Cape.
"The ruling has significant consequences, given the current economic climate where our residents, and in particular the poor, are already struggling to make ends meet. This ruling should send a strong message that Sanral has reached the end of the road as far as the Winelands Tolling Project is concerned. The ruling vindicates the city's firm belief that the process undertaken by Sanral to declare portions of the N1 and N2 as toll roads was improper and unlawful," it said.
The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) congratulated the City of Cape Town for "taking a stand and defending the rights of citizens to enjoy toll-free urban roads, which are essential for daily commuting and the development of the economy".
Wayne Duvenage, chairman of Outa, says: "It was a ludicrous idea for Sanral to accept an unsolicited bid to toll the Western Cape's freeways in the first place. To make matters worse, Sanral then failed to conduct a meaningful public participation process, just as they did in Gauteng, which has led to the collapse of the scheme, since its inception two years ago."
The high costs of toll administration, the exorbitant construction costs, and the guaranteed enrichment of a concessionaire consortium, can only be dubbed as an outrageous scheme, to say the least, he notes.
"The judge certainly got it right in a judgement which sheds light on the incorrect and appalling procedures implemented by Sanral, which has far too often ignored the very people expected to pay the unjust tolls linked to important public infrastructural development," Duvenage adds.
To date, Sanral has been extremely remiss in some of its research and extremely lax in its involvement of society and other structures of government, in a number of its projects, giving rise to many court challenges and a need for costly corrective action, Outa says in a statement.
Furthermore, it adds, Outa's research indicates there are many questions to be asked of Sanral, in regards to its unsolicited bids and past regulatory amendments to the Sanral Act, which have left the public poorer and a few concessionaires a lot richer. "The authorities' actions are effectively introducing a new questionable and unjustified tax on the people of this country."
Meanwhile, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has reiterated its stance that Gauteng's e-toll system must be scrapped following Sanral losing its bid to implement a similar system on Western Cape roads.
The DA's John Moodey said in a statement "what has happened in the Western Cape, must now happen here in Gauteng".
He said "e-tolls have been denying the poor access to jobs and have a detrimental effect on working-class people, a fact which has now been recognised by the court".
Cosatu's Matthew Parks says the labour organisations "remain and will remain opposed to e-tolls as it amounts to the naked privatisation of a publicly paid for essential public good. No amount of adjusting regulations can change that fact.
"Cosatu calls for the immediate scrapping of e-tolls and a commitment by government that no further such privatisation of essential public goods will take place."
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