The government entity, the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral), has taken their obsessive pursuit of enforcing e-tolling from the theatre of the absurd to the realm of the immoral.
The state-owned company under the control of the National Department of Transport has approached the Department of Justice to discuss the possibility of establishing special courts for e-toll dodgers.
According to Justice Project South Africa’s (JPSA) Howard Dembovsky this will collapse the already strained justice system of the country as Sanral aims to prosecute in the vicinity of two million e-toll rebels in a month, whereas the justice system is not able to prosecute half that number in a year.
“What really disgusts us about this mooted action is that to date ‘special courts’ have not been established for priority crimes, including but not limited to rape, murder, armed robbery, et cetera. When limiting the concept of ‘special courts’ to serious road crimes we take note that no such action apparently is being contemplated to deal effectively with things such as driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs. Considering that driving under the influence of alcohol and/ or drugs claims the lives of thousands of South Africans annually and drunk driving cases rarely get finalised timeously, one would have thought that this would have been prioritised,” says Dembovsky.
For a long time the Democratic Alliance Woman’s Network (Dawn) also has been fighting for special courts for sexual offenders but only hears promises.
“Government’s plan to create courts to prosecute people who do not pay e-tolls must sound the alarm bells for all Gauteng residents.
“Alongside expensive tariffs published last week, the courts are a sign of how serious this government is about emptying the pockets of South Africans.
“If these plans go ahead, a road user who fails to pay the astronomical cost of R400 a month for regular trips between Soweto and Midrand will be hauled before a special court and prosecuted,” warned the DA’s National spokesperson and Roodepoort resident Mmusi Maimane.
