The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) this morning announced the selection of Protea Parkways Consortium (PPC) as the preferred bidder for the N1-N2 Winelands Toll Highway Project (WTHP), planned for the Western Cape, at a cost of R10 billion.
This is despite intergovernmental disputes and the official opposition party's rejection of the project.
Sanral says PPC comprises a variety of private investors and partners to the South African government, and includes a team of contractors, SMMEs, financial institutions, technical and legal experts, socio economic and development specialists and environmentalists.
“The estimated project cost, as proposed by the preferred bidder, is in the order of R10 billion. The WTHP is a partnership between the public sector represented by Sanral, and the private sector, the PPC consortium, under the concept of private and public partnership for a period of 30 years.”
Toll technology
The agency says the initial construction works will take three years to complete, and the envisaged commencement date is the second quarter of 2012 if the full funding for the project is successfully raised.
The operation and maintenance period is expected to start, in principle, from 2015 and run until 2042.
The project is 175km in total, and will include the 105km of the N1 Section from the Old Oak Interchange (West of the R300) to Sandhills (De Doorns Intersection East of the Hekspoort), and the 70km of the N2 section from a point west of the Swartklip (R300) interchange to Botriver (east of the Hermanus road interchange).
“The N1/N2 WTHP will increase road capacity, improve safety and offer cost savings in terms of lower vehicle running costs and less time spent on the road,” says Sanral.
It adds that the route will feature intelligent transport systems and travel demand measures with variable message signs, incident management systems, CCTV, electronic traffic detection services and street lighting for quick response times to accidents, and to generate traffic data for informed travel decisions and safer journeys.
“In addition to alleviating congestion and the resultant direct benefits to road users, the project has the potential to create approximately 5 000 jobs during the construction phase, of which at least 72% of the total direct jobs would go to workers from local communities.”
Paying twice?
“These tolls have a tremendous inflationary effect on the ability to do business in tolled areas - especially where the transportation of goods is concerned. Ultimately these increased costs will be passed onto the consumer. The reality is that consumers are paying for the toll, as well as for its inflationary effect on the price of goods,” says Retail Motor Industry (RMI) Organisation CEO Jeff Osborne.
“Too much money is being spent on an unnecessary collection mechanism and we, as the RMI, have to ask: What level of upgrading could be undertaken for R10 billion or to what extent could the public transport system be enhanced instead? As is the case in Gauteng, this is a complex funding mechanism, which could easily be done away with by simply increasing the fuel levy.”
Sanral acknowledges the concerns around the impact of tolling on consumer goods.
“To this end, Sanral conducted a cost benefit analysis, which showed that due to the savings that will be accrued by businesses from operating on the tolled roads, consumer goods prices should be less with the tolled roads than without it.”
The agency adds that logistics companies will also be able to claim back from SARS the toll tariffs, as well as the associated VAT.
“Economic impact studies, from the Graduate School of Business of the University of Cape Town, show that the cost of consumer goods being transported from the Cape farms and dry goods from Gauteng (such that these vehicles go through all the toll plazas on the N1) would increase by between 0.30% and 0.31% depending on the income category. This is the equivalent of 31c for each R100 that is spent.”
Legal halt
Democratic Alliance (DA) shadow minister of transport Stuart Farrow says this announcement goes against instruction from the ministry.
He adds that the project will see the same public outcry as with the e-tolling system in Gauteng. It's for this reason deputy transport minister Jeremy Cronin last month said Sanral should hold on before tolling anymore roads.
He said the issue of toll roads was being discussed at a national level and the City of Cape Town could try legal routes to stop the Winelands project.
Pocket knock
“The problem here is that they [Sanral] just ignore instructions given to them. There was supposed to be a moratorium on all toll roads and it seems they just ignored that. They're entering into tenders and it's a problem to get out of those contracts once they're signed. There are heavy financial implications.”
Farrow adds that it is as yet unknown whether the toll tariffs will be collected via e-tags like with the Gauteng system, or through the set-up of physical booths. He also said there are no details around the toll prices as yet.
“They come and deliver very nice, fancy plans, but don't talk about the costing. They leave these things right until the end and those figures are what people want to know. We seem to be going to the Rolls Royces of road plans, but it hits the pockets of the masses the most and the implications of that need to be considered.”
The shadow minister admits there is a congestion problem on the highway that needs to be addressed, but says adding more lanes doesn't seem to solve the problem.
“The more lanes you put in the more people use them. The key issue is to put people on public transport. Sanral should become part and parcel of the transport family in trying to find a solution and enhance public transport. I don't think we're ready for urban tolls yet.”
ITWeb was unable to reach Sanral for comment by the time of publication.
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