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The South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd (SANRAL) is not working with the Johannesburg Metro Police Department (JMPD) to check whether road users are e-tagged or not. In fact, acquiring an e-tag is optional and no road user should be stopped for having no e-tag.
 
Some road users have called a radio station to claim that the JMPD on city roads stopped them over the weekend and checked whether they have e-tags.
 
“We categorically deny that there is any partnership with the JMPD on this.  No vehicles on any road are being checked to see whether they are e-tag registered. The JPMD has in the past distanced itself from this and so did we,” says Vusi Mona, the agency’s spokesperson.
 
“There could be people who are doing this illegally in our name or it is one of those urban legends now gaining a life of its own,” says Mona.
 
SANRAL urges any road user who has been stopped purportedly to check if they have an e-tag to contact SANRAL. If anyone posing as a JPMD officer has stopped any motorist, such a road user must contact the JPMD.
 
“Getting e-tagged makes it possible for the road user to get a 48 percent discount and to have their monthly bill capped, among other benefits, but is not compulsory,” Mona says.