The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has reassured motorists it will abide by the Constitutional Court judgement on the Winelands N1/N2 toll project.
In September, the Supreme Court of Appeal ruled Sanral and the transport minister acted unlawfully in purporting to have the Winelands routes declared toll roads. The court dismissed an appeal by the roads agency over the right to toll the N1 and N2 Winelands routes.
Last week, the Constitutional Court dismissed Sanral's bid to have previous judgements by the Western Cape High Court and the Supreme Court of Appeal set aside.
The Constitutional Court's ruling now means Sanral will have to start a public participation process if it wants to go ahead with its plans to toll parts of the N1 and N2 in the Western Cape.
Following the Constitutional Court ruling, Sanral issued a statement saying it notes the judgement by the Constitutional Court and will abide by it.
Over the past two months, the roads agency has consistently stated it is embarking on a new consultative approach with relevant stakeholders to find common ground on challenges that relate to road infrastructure development, the roads agency says.
"As reaffirmed by our new CEO, we will continue to engage the City of Cape Town to find a solution to the growing congestion crisis in the Winelands area. Discussions with the city have already started," says Sanral's head of communications, Vusi Mona.
The roads agency is not only pursuing engagements with the Western Cape and City of Cape Town but with other municipalities and provinces such as eThekwini, Gauteng, KwaZulu-Natal and Free State to unlock economic growth potential and contribute to regional development, says Sanral.
This is the new perspective within the roads agency that recently appointed CEO Skhumbuzo Macozoma seeks to ingrain, it adds.
"Our constitution requires of us, as the different spheres of government, to work together in order to deliver services to citizens," says Mona.
E-tolls opponent, the Organisation of Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), has welcomed the latest ruling. In a statement issued yesterday, the civil action group says: "Outa is pleased with the Constitutional Court ruling to deny Sanral leave to appeal the ruling against them on the Western Cape Winelands toll road saga."
It points out that following the harsh judgements against Sanral in both the Western Cape High Court and the Supreme Court, "we were surprised about Sanral's decision to appeal the outcomes of the two previous judgements. But at the same time, we were also not surprised, as Sanral's litigious behaviour and the continuous waste of taxpayers' money on court cases has been a common theme of this state-owned entity over the past decade or so."
Outa adds it congratulates the City of Cape Town on its victory and for standing its ground on this matter.
"We have always been convinced that Sanral's conduct on the Winelands tolling decision, as it was in the Gauteng e-toll matter, was unlawful, irrational and excessively expensive," says Wayne Duvenage, Outa chairperson.
According to Outa, the tolling of urban road infrastructure is fundamentally wrong, as these are roads the public use for daily commuting and for which they pay taxes.
Outa maintains it is high time government scrapped the failed Gauteng e-toll scheme, which now has extremely low compliance levels of around 20%. "Their current income levels barely pay for the administration costs, let alone being able to service the road construction bonds," says Duvenage.
Meanwhile, in a separate statement, Outa says Sanral intends to criminally prosecute non-payers of e-tolls, in an attempt to recover R9 billion in unpaid bills.
"They [Sanral] have given instruction to proceed with civil and criminal action against defaulters and expect to obtain default judgements in the first half of this year," Outa says.
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