In an article that appeared in The Times on 9 September, Communications Manager Vusi Mona explained how South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) plans to “punish e-toll rebels”.
According to Mona “road-users would have seven days, from the first gantry pass, to pay their e-tolls. If they fail to pay within seven days they will be referred to Sanral’s violations processing centre [the division that deals with overdue tolls]”.
Howard Dembovsky, The National Chairman of Justice Project South Africa (JPSA), has retaliated with a harsh reply to the “plan”.
“It is very interesting to note the revelations contained in this report and to see that Sanral again has chosen to resort to levelling threats of criminal prosecution in an attempt to intimidate motorists into complying with their prepaid model of e-Toll collection.
“Previously, Sanral claimed that 600 000 eTags had been sold, but now it is claiming that 100 000 less than their previous claims in fact have been sold. This must raise the question as to just how accurate any of their claims, including but not limited to the monthly financial prejudice citizens will incur, actually are. Additionally, this is the first time that they have come clean with the proportions of whom these eTags have been sold to, with an alleged 300 000 of them having been sold to private individuals – which we assume means individuals and companies that are not State institutions,” says Dembovsky.
“According to eNaTIS, there are 3 799 750 registered vehicles in Gauteng as at 30 June 2013. Sanral claims that around 2 500 000 of these use Gauteng’s e-toll freeways on a daily/ monthly basis, and therefore it is safe to assume that more than 2 million vehicles do not have e-Tags at this stage. This represents 80 per cent of the vehicles on the road in Johannesburg and Tshwane not having e-Tags,” Dembovsky argues.
“It has been stated by Mona and others that the Criminal Procedure Act will be used to prosecute e-toll ‘rebels’ and this is entirely possible – even with AARTO in effect in Johannesburg and Tshwane, by simply classifying all e-toll violations as criminal offences. What seems to have been overlooked however is the fact that the National Prosecuting Authority does not prosecute one million criminal matters in total over the course of a year, let alone double that each month,” Dembovsky continues.
“If it is Sanral’s intention to bring a grinding halt to the South African criminal justice system, they most certainly are going the right way about achieving this. Clearly they would like all prosecutions for serious crimes to be side-lined in favour of criminalising people who choose to oppose their unjust e-toll laws.
“It is very easy to say how they will deal with e-toll ‘rebels’ in an attempt to scare them, but it is not so easy to carry out these threats. Sanral engaging in such behaviour is despicable and such actions are additionally completely contrary to the ‘Batho Pele’ (people first) principle, which is supposed to be rooted and promoted in any political and legislative framework,” Dembovsky concluded his scathing attack.
