The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) says it is looking forward to the opportunity to take to the podium today to brief Parliament on what has gone wrong with e-tolling, as well as what has gone right.
It has been nine weeks since the onset of government's largely-opposed open road tolling system went live and the issue of e-tolls is still raising motorists' hackles, but Sanral says only 0.3% of people using its e-roads have complained.
The roads agency concedes that, even though this is a small percentage, it still translates into a "sizeable number". According to Sanral, there are about 2.6 million individual vehicles using Gauteng's e-toll highways - which means about 8 000 complaints have been submitted.
Sanral says, because the percentage translates into a substantial number, the impression of a failed system is created. "That is clearly incorrect."
The state-owned agency intends to back up its claim that there are "problems with e-tolls, but the system works" at the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport (PPCT), meeting in Cape Town today.
The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) says it feels Sanral is downplaying the situation ahead of the PPCT hearing today. It has urged MPs to look beyond Sanral's positioning of its presentation as a "soccer match post-mortem".
Outa mouthpiece John Clarke describes Sanral's statement that the number of complaints is a "mere" 0.3% of the total e-road users as "comical".
The anti-toll spokesperson says there are hundreds of thousands of road users who are simply not complying and have not bothered to complain. "The real issue is that the system does not have the support and commitment of the people."
Security breach
Clarke has also urged MPs to insist Sanral fully explains why it has yet to establish how many user accounts were compromised in a potentially serious online security breach, which was brought to its attention last month - but has been public knowledge since the end of last year.
"[Sanral needs to explain why] it has neither notified compromised account-holders of the crime, nor notified its user base as a whole that their personal data may be in the hands of cyber criminals."
ITWeb reported on the security flaw in Sanral's e-toll Web site last month. Exploiting the flaw, attackers could - until 8 January - gain access to unsuspecting victims' accounts, including their personal data such as car registration, phone numbers, physical address and other information.
Sanral spokesperson Vusi Mona says Sanral does not deny there are problems, but the agency is working to overcome them. "[Today] is a good opportunity to communicate where e-tolling is at right now and how Sanral plans to improve the system."
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