The South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) has lashed out at the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) over claims it made earlier this week.
The statements that Sanral has found fault with were made at a press conference earlier this week after it lost a Supreme Court of Appeal (SCA) bid to quash e-tolling on Gauteng's freeways.
In a statement, Sanral said that this Thursday, Outa "made the outrageous claim that roads in Johannesburg would become death traps as trucking companies choose to avoid the Gauteng highway network and toll gantries".
It says the Road Freight Association (RFA) has already refuted this claim and did so again this week. RFA spokesman Gavin Kelly has confirmed publicly that trucks would not skip tolls
Sanral notes that Kelly highlighted that the RFA had previously engaged with Sanral and the department to reduce tariff rates. "Another fact which flies in the face of claims that Sanral has steamrolled GFIP [the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project] without any consultation," it says.
The agency claims that Outa and other opponents of e-tolling have also "begun calls for civil disobedience, in effect calling on members of the public to break the law". Sanral says Outa's claims "are inflammatory and fly in the face of nation building".
However, Outa has not called for civil disobedience.
"Some of them are misinformation, some of them are just bald-faced lies," Sanral spokesman Vusi Mona said. "It is concerning that OUTA continues to do this. It is one thing to fight a legal battle which you believe in but it is another all together to spread lies and incorrect information. Some of it borders on incitement and some of it amounts to shouting 'fire' in a packed cinema hall."
Mona urged residents to remember that Sanral had consulted with various experts in their fields in the planning and construction of GFIP. He said Outa chairman Wayne Duvenage is neither an engineer nor a lawyer.
"We would implore him to stop commenting on issues which fall outside his expertise. We would also ask him to refrain from making statements on behalf of various stakeholders without their knowledge or buy in."
Mona reiterated the call for motorists to get e-tags. The charge to motorists for using roads under the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project is expected to come into effect before year-end. This week, the Department of Transport published e-toll rates for public comment.
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