The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) is now being cautious with regards to giving timelines as to when e-tolling of Gauteng's highways will commence, as it does not want to pressure President Jacob Zuma.
The month of July, previously tagged by Sanral as the month e-tolls would go live, has come and gone - and a new ballpark timeframe for the system going live will not be known until Zuma has given the Transport Laws and Related Matters Amendment Bill (e-toll Bill) the nod.
Live implementation of government's e-toll system is on ice until the e-toll Bill has been signed by the president, after which regulations and notices relating to e-tolls and related tariffs will be published for 14 days, before coming into effect.
Today, at a media roundtable convened by the roads agency, Sanral spokesperson Vusi Mona said: "We don't want to impose deadlines for Zuma, when we don't know what is on his table. When he is ready, he will sign [the e-toll bill]."
On/off implementation
The launch of the controversial open road tolling system has been delayed repeatedly since Sanral announced it was ready to roll it out - a bane for the roads agency that Mona says is due to the state-owned entity's engagement with the public and legal proceedings brought about by objections to e-tolls.
Last year ended on a sour note, with Sanral indicating e-tolls were set to begin around Christmas time. But the tables turned about a month later, when the ANC withdrew the the e-toll Bill just before its second reading debate in Parliament.
At the time indications were that Sanral's launch plans had only been foiled until February of this year, but the month rolled by, and uncertainty remained.
Meanwhile, the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) was granted leave to appeal e-tolls - a hearing that will take place on 25 and 26 September in the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
While the Department of Transport maintains the appeal is irrelevant to the legality of e-tolling, Outa says it is still confident the case could turn government around on the issue.
Alex van Niekerk, project manager of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project - for which the e-toll system was conceived to help fund - says, as it stands, e-tolling is ready to go ahead at any given moment.
"We have been running the system in live environment for months now. Administration processes are in place to handle payments, and the violation system that sends invoices and notices to violators is automated. We have tested the system from all different angles and we have the capacity to carry it out."
While the legal process that will follow non-payment is a lengthier one, which has not been able to be tested, "Sanral has planned for different scenarios," says Van Niekerk.
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