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Blade Nzimande calls DA anti-toll campaign a tea party, while he too hates the tolls

Blade Nzimande calls DA anti-toll campaign a tea party, while he too hates the tolls

SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande has slated the DA for running a “right-wing, tea-party campaign” against Gauteng toll roads, which is nothing like the “legitimate anger” of the SACP, Cosatu and the ANC against the project. CARIEN DU PLESSIS tried to spot the difference between the two campaigns.

It’s a class issue, these toll roads that everyone’s fighting about, says SACP general secretary Blade Nzimande, which means the struggle against the toll roads cannot be called a common one, as it’s fought from different vantage points.

In a speech prepared for the transport and allied workers’ union Satawu’s conference in Rustenburg on Tuesday, Nzimande slammed the DA’s campaign in Gauteng as “a highly opportunistic, right-wing, tea-party campaign” against the toll roads.

“They are trying to ride on the legitimate anger of Cosatu, the SACP, the ANC and Gautengers in general about this wasteful, misdirected spend,” he said.

Nzimande said the SACP agreed that the spending on the roads was the “wrong priority”.

Over R20 billion had already gone to the toll road project, which is basically “infrastructure for the middle classes”. Only 2% of the vehicles on these roads are public transport vehicles, he said. He omitted, however, to say that taxis and buses had been exempted from these tolls, but that trucks which brought food into Johannesburg for rich and poor, would most likely be subjected to the tolls (which means higher food prices for all).

Nzimande said the SACP agreed with the DA that the project should be put on hold, but the DA’s motives were all wrong because the “are not raising equity questions, class questions – they are not asking WHO uses these roads”.

Nzimande claimed the DA had supported the widening and extension of the freeways for the past seven years, “they just don’t want their white, suburban middle-class car-owners to pay for the structure that has been built”. The DA has, instead, asked for the money to come from the budget or from raising the fuel levy.

Of course, Nzimande is opposed to this, but he doesn’t propose how he would like to see these roads being funded should they not operate as toll roads. Perhaps he sees it as a fait accompli for which middle class motorists should now cough up, or perhaps he sees no solution and doesn’t pretend to do so.

Of course this is a difficult topic for the SACP to tackle, Nzimande’s deputy, Jeremy Cronin, being the deputy transport minister and all, responsible for “selling” the toll roads to citizens (the project was started before he came into office).

Cronin did, however, indicate last month that future projects, such as those proposed in his home town, Cape Town, would be put on hold. Despite this, Sanral has indicated that it would go ahead with its planned schedule for tolling the N1 and the N2 near Cape Town as part of its Winelands highway toll project.

The DA-run City of Cape Town has, however, instituted legal action to try to stop the R10 billion project, and the case is set to be heard in the high court on 6 December.

The DA in Gauteng last week launched a campaign called Toll Free GP to oppose the tolls – complete with T-shirts, stickers and an interactive website. It also encourages people to contribute towards this campaign so that it could buy more T-shirts, stickers, and pamphlets to dissuade government from going ahead with the e-tolls.

It does sound weird that a communist party would be so mild-mannered about the project while the DA, which has a policy in favour of privatisation and public-private-partnerships, should be so opposed.

Cronin’s presence on the SACP’s central committee explains his party’s rather sober stance, while DA Gauteng caucus leader Jack Bloom explained to iMaverick that the DA is opposed to the project because “the whole thing has been completely botched”.

It’s unusual to toll an existing road, because usually it’s only roads on new routes that get tolled, he said, and “nowhere else in the world do you toll an urban road”.

Also, R14 billion out of the R20 billion of the project have gone towards building the tolling system itself. “It’s almost like we bought a toll collection system and added a road to it.”

The system of collecting the tolls is also far too complex, he said, and if authorities could not even get the Joburg billing system to work, how would they do this one? “Far too many things can go wrong.”

He also said the terms of the contract between the Gauteng government and the tenderer were unknown, and it should have been more transparent.

Cosatu unions are still not supporting the toll roads, and some like Satawu have threatened to block the highways if the tolls were to go ahead.

The ANC in the province has also expressed its opposition to the tolls, while the party in the legislature scheduled a debate on the matter for this week, only to call it off at the last minute – maybe first needing to persuade all ruling party caucus members to be of one mind about the issue. DM




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