Clearly, Mr Stoychev placed himself in an extremely vulnerable position, as a result of his unnecessary and wrongful action of driving with false license plates, which in turn gave SANRAL an opportunity to pounce and “claim their first victim”. The sad reality is that had Mr Stoychev not falsified his license plates, SANRAL would not have pursued him for his unpaid e-toll bills. Just as they haven’t summonsed a single person amongst the 1,6 million motorists who have outstanding e-toll bills, to tune of well over three billion rand.

True to their typical antics, SANRAL’s propaganda machine could not resist the highly opportunistic situation, borne out of their desperate attempt to once again, create fear in the mind of road users who have not paid their e-toll bills.

This action against Mr Stoychev, begs the question of what halted SANRAL’s efforts in bringing similar charges against Telkom’s CEO, Sipho Maseko, wherein he too was recently accused of driving a vehicle with false license plates.

The message is simple, do not break the law by using false number-plates and you won’t give Sanral an opening to effectively extort money from you.

The fact remains, that three out of four Gauteng motorists have acted with civil courage to defy the e-toll scheme. They have done so largely in the knowledge that the GFIP construction overcharge is a most foul debt brought upon them by the State. This has been further overlaid by the fundamentally unlawful decision to declare the Gauteng Freeway a tolled road in 2008. Accordingly, if SANRAL seeks to enforce their laws, they need to first and foremost demonstrate that the have obeyed the constitution of the country.

Instead, SANRAL have shown gross contempt for values and content of Section 195 of the Constitution, by not commencing the e-toll decision process with a proper, transparent, accountable and ethical public consultation process in 2007. Not to mention a host of other transgressions which point to the irrationality and unworkability of the expensive and inefficient scheme.

So while Mr Stoychev’s foolish fake registration plate situation has encouraged Sanral to seize the moment with more opportunistic and extortionist marketing tactics, their antics ought only to haunt those who choose to drive their vehicles with false number plates. For the rest, sleep easy. DM