/ MEDIA STATEMENT / The content on this page is not written by Polity.org.za, but is supplied by third parties. This content does not constitute news reporting by Polity.org.za.

The campaign against e-tolls, by the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA) and many others, has been powerfully vindicated by the testimony of a whistle-blower, employed by the Austrian company Kapsch, which works with Sanral on the e-tolling of Gauteng’s highways.

He reinforces our argument that e-tolling is a hugely inefficient and wasteful way to raise funds for a vital public service like our highways.

In correspondence with OUTA, the whistle-blower claims that the e-toll system was designed to monitor 7 000km of national roads. “Sanral,” he says, “had an ambition for the system to be planned and designed on the assumption that open road tolling would be implemented on a national scale, whereas Kapsch were of the opinion that the risk factors were too high, and argued for an incremental approach, starting in Gauteng”.

“Sanral insisted that their Central Operations Centre, the second largest tolling system in the Southern hemisphere, must have the capacity to handle several thousand kilometres of road with gantries erected to gather data from across the country, starting with Gauteng, but extending soon afterwards to national roads in KwaZulu Natal and the Western Cape.”

This added R2.5 billion to the project’s overall cost, which Gauteng motorists are being asked to pay for. Kapsch, he says, told Sanral the risks of a national roll out were “too high” but was ignored.
He adds that there are serious design flaws in the current e-tolling system: Sanral’s use of cameras and radio frequency receivers to read e-tags on every gantry is contrary to best international practice; it was done against Kapsch’s advice and significantly increased the cost of the system.
Sanral’s IT portal for the e-tolling system, he claims, is also vulnerable to hackers, who can easily access commuters’ personal information.
The whistleblower, who still works for Kapsch, says he’s willing to be interviewed by Public Protector’s office to prove his allegations, which have been compiled into an affidavit by OUTA, which has submitted it to the Public Protector. City Press reports that Thuli Madonsela is currently considering the affidavit and deciding whether to launch a full investigation.

This revelation will give a boost to the federation`s determined campaign to defeat this attempt to privatise our highways and charge the people of Gauteng to travel on roads they have already paid for through taxes and the fuel levy.

The fight against e-tolling - and for efficient, reliable, affordable and safe public transport for all the people goes on. We continue to urge motorists not to register with Sanral or buy e-tags, and to make the system unworkable.

We are certain that people power will finally convince the government to abandon a policy with is extremely unpopular, unfair and unworkable, for the following reasons:

1. Tolls will add to the burdens of workers and the poor, who will be forced to pay to travel on highways. It is a lie that only the middle class use our highways. Many low income earners use private cars to travel to work not through choice but because they have no reliable alternative. They are already burdened by rising fuel prices and electricity tariffs, and the tolls will be yet another blow.

2. It will not just affect the people of Gauteng; the whistle-blower has confirmed that e-tolling will be used for future road projects throughout the country. Tolls will also put an indirect burden on the poor of the whole country, by adding to the cost of transporting goods, which will have an immediate effect on food inflation.

3. Tolls will perpetuate the exclusive `user-pays`, which means you cannot use the best roads if you cannot afford to pay the tolls. Those without money will be forced on to the potholed side roads, while those with the money glide along the highways in their fancy cars.

4. The `user-pays` principle is a thoroughly capitalist and elitist concept, totally at odds with the progressive and socialist belief that public services should be delivered on the basis of people`s needs and not the size of their bank balances. Taken to its logical conclusion `user-pays` would mean that only the sick would pay for medical services and only the parents of school-age children would pay for education.

5. There is a genuine problem of congestion on our roads, but this will not be solved by forcing people to pay to use them and excluding those who cannot pay, but by steadily improving our public transport services, making them more reliable, accessible, affordable and safe, until they become the preferred way to travel, and motorists can safely leave their cars at home.

6. The tolls will be ridiculously expensive to collect. According to Sanral`s own estimate, at least 17% of the money collected in tolls will simply be used to collect the money. So tolls are not only unfair but also a grossly inefficient way of raising the money for road improvements. Trying to collect all this money from four million motorists will be impossible to manage and will become unworkable.

9. COSATU has consistently argued that when additional revenues have to be raised by government, then this must be done through the tax system, rather than tolls which take no account of the drivers` ability to pay. Taxation is both fairer, since the more you earn the more you pay, and far easier to collect.

Stop the privatisation of our public highways!
Reject user-pays for basic public services!
Don`t buy e-tags!
Don`t register will Sanral! Make e-tolling unworkable!
- See more at: http://www.cosatu.org.za/show.php?ID=8596#sthash.QVR5NE0V.dpuf