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Outa: Less than 2% of e-toll discount heeded

Staff Writer
By Staff Writer, ITWeb
Johannesburg, 29 Mar 2016
Outa says it doesn't expect Sanral's e-toll compliance levels to go much beyond 30%.
Outa says it doesn't expect Sanral's e-toll compliance levels to go much beyond 30%.

With just over a month to go before the South African Roads Agency's (Sanral's) e-toll 60% discount dispensation ends, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) says less than 2% of discounts have been taken up.

Outa says the first five months of the Less60 campaign have "seen less than R100 million of the R5.9 billion ring-fenced debt collected, which means around 1.5% of the dispensation discount offer has been heeded".

Outa says it "notes with amusement" Sanral's claim of an increase in e-toll collections. Outa says the numbers have remained low and relatively steady, oscillating between a high of R82 million and low of R59 million over the seven months from July 2015 to January 2016.

"To now suggest the e-toll collections of between R80 million and R90 million for February and March 2016 is a growth of any substance, is a feeble attempt at claiming success when there is none," says Outa.

Outa chairman Wayne Duvenage says throughout the first half of last year, Sanral's e-toll collections averaged at R65 million per month, which was around half the level of the best e-toll revenue record of R120 million in June 2014.

"Their record month was only achieved after six months of coercive threats of summonses and criminal records and despite this, they failed to collect less than half the R260 million monthly income, which Sanral frequently espoused as required and attainable, prior to the scheme's launch," adds Duvenage.

He says Outa doubts if any last-minute rush to take up the 60% discount offer will transpire before the end of April, when the campaign ends.

"We don't expect Sanral's e-toll compliance levels to go much beyond 30%, which is a massive failure for any so-called user-pays scheme," says Duvenage.

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