Justice Project South Africa wishes to express its sincere thanks to Premier David Makhura and his e-tolls review panel for the opportunity for us to make our presentation and hand our written submission at the hearing yesterday.

Both, our presentation and written submission are available for download at www.jp-sa.org and it is our sincere hope that the panel, as well as national government will take seriously our warning on the looming socio-economic disaster that is presented by creating hundreds of thousands, if not millions of over-indebted, artificial criminals.

If reducing unemployment and creating a better life for all South Africans is the objective, criminalising those who feel that e-tolling is an unjust, expensive and wasteful way to generate much needed funding for infrastructure is most certainly not the way to go about it.

A person who possesses a criminal record stands little chance of securing employment in South Africa, since employers run criminal record checks against prospective employees. Those who find this to be a problem would then effectively be home-imprisoned in South Africa since it is highly unlikely they would be granted a foreign travel visa.

The net results thereof will be that many artificial criminals may become real criminals, just so as to ensure that they survive. This is not the path that JPSA would like to see South Africa heading down, when implementing a simple, efficient “national roads levy” on fuel could so easily lessen the burden on ordinary and financially stretched beyond the limit South Africans.

Issued by the JPSA