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Opinionista

The e-toll charade: Government in dire straits?

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Wayne Duvenage is a businessman and entrepreneur turned civil activist. Following former positions as CEO of AVIS and President of SA Vehicle Renting and Leasing Association, Duvenage has headed the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse since its inception in 2012.

Another week of heightened e-toll talk has passed, with government reversing its original decision to snub Premier David Makhura's advisory panel. It was clearly the Nazir Alli show, featuring his input and assistance provided to officials and participants during three days of government’s relentless submissions.

For many, it was a case of déjà vu. We’d heard the same rhetoric throughout the GFIP steering committee in 2011 and the Inter-Ministerial Committee process of 2012. Every angle that government presented spoke of what they’d hoped would have happened and not what has transpired since e-tolls were launched. They appeared oblivious to the glaring facts and failures that have unfolded over the past year.

The supposed 8,4:1 benefit-to-cost ratio and economic modelling was once again highlighted by the Barry Standish and Andrew Marsay duo, whose input implied the wider roads made us richer by R8,40 for every R1.00 we spent on the tolls to finance them. The inference here is that the wider freeways would remain less congested for the entire two-decade period of the upgrade bond repayments. Their input reveals ignorance of the ample research about induced road congestion in the absence of efficient public transport alternatives. Some three years after the completion of the freeway upgrade, Gauteng’s freeway congestion has crept close to the levels experienced when the upgrade began in 2008. Has the 8,4:1 theory ever been properly tested since the upgraded freeways came into play? Should those who have been paying their e-toll fees stop doing so now that the decongestion benefit has diminished?

Then we heard pitiful claims of ‘no new money’ to extract from society to finance the bonds or maintain the roads. How is it then that this tax-year, Treasury will extract an extra R26bn per annum (or 103% up), over and above that which was raised through the fuel levy when the freeway upgrade began in 2008/9? I sincerely felt sorry for the panel, who were subjected to another bout of rhetoric along the lines of ‘why should people in Limpopo pay for Gauteng’s roads?’ as if to imply that Limpopo and most of the other provinces were self-sufficient and did not rely on tax revenues generated by the Gauteng region.

Adding to the self-sympathetic talk came a plea for reason and cooperation – lest another Moody’s downgrade lumps SANRAL into junk status – implying that society was at fault for SANRAL’s woes. They spoke of being transparent, inclusionary, consultative and of having the courts rule in their favour. Well, I guess society is behaving out of line, then, and SANRAL has done it all correctly. If so, why the mess?

SANRAL’s CFO, Inge Mulder, fingered unruly “external forces” who allegedly spoilt SANRAL’s plans. Pray tell, Ms Mulder, just who or what are these external forces that come to mind? COSATU, the many Church movements that have denounced e-tolls, the ANCYL, OUTA, the EFF or other political parties, perhaps? Or could it be the estimated 1,5 million freeway users who have displayed moral courage to defy an unjust and irrational policy? Could it be that SANRAL might have spurred them on by abusing its power in spending millions of taxpayers’ money on a dubious marketing and propaganda campaign that even the ASA has partially ruled against? You naughty, bad external forces, you.

SANRAL certainly did not expand on the credibility of their research, advice and economic modelling that initially predicted the public’s compliance at above 90%, nor how an inaccurate eNatis system would not compromise the system’s efficiency, now how Aarto would be ready in time for use as an enforcement mechanism. The fact of the matter is that e-tolling’s systems and design were never going to be robust enough to effectively administer and implement the scheme within the South African context – certainly not at the grand scale that SANRAL had in mind. The scheme was always going to be severely challenged by the very forces that have come into play since its launch. And yes, Ms. Mulder, they are all forces external to SANRAL’s control.

For many who’d soaked up the input last week, SANRAL’s submission(s) were taken with a pinch of salt. Even the taxi industry, who are exempt from paying e-tolls, have fitted less than a handful of the 46,000 e-tags allocated to them, a year into the scheme. Talk about unworkability. Realistically, though, the e-toll laws will never be adhered to by a vast majority of freeway-users, a matter that government simply can’t get its mind around. However, it is a matter which has come to represent a new strength and meaning of active citizenry in South Africa, depicting the extent of negative reaction that ensues when an extractive institution pays little homage to the very people it is meant to serve.

It would appear that Premier Makhura’s Advisory Panel hearings are now complete and they will begin to sift through the sea of information, separating that which matters from that which is irrelevant to their mandate. The panel will also hopefully speak to others for more input about the history of prior Regional and National Government agreements that led to the handing over of the R21 to SANRAL. They may also enquire about the missing but intended integrated public transport system.

Following a year of dismal performance, if e-tolling resembles what government deems as an efficient and equitable user pays system, then I guess society has every reason to be concerned. It’s the same concern that applies to their witness of a bloated government and its many sickly state-run institutions that find themselves in a mess – from SAA to the Post Office, Eskom and many others.

Looking from the outside in, I guess last week’s national credit downgrade was inevitable. But it makes me angry. Angry, because we know that South Africa has every potential to be a far more prosperous nation than it is today. Angry because business has recently been called on by our president to help bail our country out of the mess his leadership has put us into. And angry because big business will probably pander more to – and challenge less of – the gross governmental inefficiencies that are choking this country to death.

Active citizenry, the likes of which e-toll defiance has achieved, is what this country needs more of – and not less – in order to succeed. DM

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