The SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) deliberately kept details of its intention to implement tolling on Gauteng's roads behind closed doors - for fear of a public outcry - while government ran roughshod over its citizens.
This is what the North Gauteng High Court heard yesterday, as the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) presented its case against government's e-toll system, which the alliance feels has been illegal and flawed from the word go.
Sanral and National Treasury will spend today trying to convince the High Court that the processes involved in the controversial e-toll system have been above board, and that adequate and meaningful consultation with the public did, in fact, take place.
Shrouding the truth
Outa told the court yesterday that government stakeholders ? including Sanral, National Treasury and the Department of Transport (DOT) - ignored the interests of the public by keeping them in the dark as to the true costs of e-tolling.
Outa's senior counsel advocate, Mike Maritz, argued that, should the e-toll system be implemented, motorists would end up paying in excess of R70 billion - while collection costs, he said, would outweigh the cost of the entire system by 150% (R30 billion).
Outa chairperson Wayne Duvenage says the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project - the impetus behind government's e-tolling system - was carried out in such a way that led the public to believe it was being done as a legacy to the 2010 Fifa World Cup Tournament.
"No one really knew what was going on - and then they started putting up gantries."
Inadequate engagement
Duvenage says Outa's main contention is that "the biggest stakeholder in this whole thing" - the public - has been ignored. Public consultations on e-tolling, he says, have been "flawed and illegal".
"[E-toll players] did as little as possible by way of public engagement, to keep the public in the dark so that there would be no outcry - which is what we are seeing now."
He says public engagement is a critical component of such a sweeping provincial implementation. "Sanral has run roughshod over section 27 of their own law - and it is important because it is there to prevent exactly what is happening now -chaos, deterioration of credit ratings and anarchy."
Section 27 of the Sanral Act requires "meaningful" consultation with the public on the issue of tolling.
Duvenage says, while there were government-appointed commissions and steering committees with internal government officials deliberating on the issue of e-tolls, "no proper external investigations" took place.
He says the chaos and outcry emanating from civil factions now is "a classic example of what happens when [governments] try to take short-cuts and ignore the law".
More than 5 000 written submissions have been submitted to government on the issue of e-tolls. The vast majority of these, says Duvenage, "most absolutely reject e-tolling".
Eleventh hour
Duvenage says Maritz also tackled an issue that has previously surfaced - that of time frames regarding opposition to the system.
"The government has questioned why we waited until the eleventh hour to bring our objections to the table. And the reason for this is that the public largely did not know what was happening.
"The public was under the impression that the building going on was to do with the World Cup and then it was on and off again, amid changing tariffs. So what do you bring to the court? We couldn't have brought it earlier."
After court ended yesterday, Duvenage said Outa's case had been "so compelling" - to the point that it would be difficult to contest.
"Our case is so compelling, I don't know how Sanral is going to get around it - they have broken the law. They may be able to soften the case, but they can't get around it."
Sanral's advocate David Unterhalter and National Treasury's legal counsel Jeremy Gauntlet have their say in court today, and the case will be wrapped up after proceedings on Wednesday - for an unknown period of time - for the judge to deliberate and submit a ruling.
Share
