The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) and the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) are at loggerheads over a statement that citizens who are members of Outa and who defaulted on e-tolls would not be prosecuted.

In a statement issued on Thursday, Outa claimed that Sanral has agreed not to prosecute e-toll defaulters who are members of the civil rights body. Sanral however refuted the claim, saying Outa’s statement is false and a mere fundraising exercise for the organisation.

According to Outa, Sanral has agreed after “months of negotiation” to stay all legal claims against current and future Outa members.

This agreement is pending the completion of a test case process which started in June 2016 and which, Outa said, could take more than two years to complete.

“The agreement effectively grants the entire Outa member community immunity until the case is complete. Our aim is to show that e-tolling is unlawful in the test case and should we succeed, the stay of legal claims will become permanent,” said Outa chairperson Wayne Duvenage.

Duvenage told Fin24 that the next step in the development of the test case is for Sanral to either agree to remove the causes for concern raised by Outa from its summons, or for these legal points to first be argued in court prior to the actual case about the legality of e-tolls being set down and heard.

But Sanral maintained Outa’s assertion is untrue. “The statement by Outa purporting that a legal agreement had been reached with Sanral on a test e-tolls case, is false,” the agency said in a separate statement. According to Sanral’s spokesperson Vusi Mona the statement was “nothing more than a fundraising exercise by Outa”.

Outa’s website shows that membership fees for the organisation starts at R80 per month.

Although the legal teams from the agency and Outa are in discussions about a test case and Sanral has agreed in principle to the process, such an agreement could only be reached once Outa has pleaded to one of the matters, which it has not yet done, Mona added.

Outa has however hit back, and said in a new statement issued on Friday that it stands by its statement that all of its members who have been summonsed to date, or may be summonsed in the future for the non-payment of e-tolls, will have their cases stayed until the outcome of the court process.

“There is no confusion here and if Vusi Mona denies this, he needs to get the facts from Werksmans who are representing them on this matter,” Duvenage said.

“We find it amusing that Vusi Mona describes our statement as a membership drive exercise. Our membership base, which consists of tens of thousands of individuals, families and businesses, is growing every day.”

Meanwhile,  Duvenage claimed that his organisation has a strong case. “The public’s view is that they were not adequately consulted on the matter and that they will be vindicated when the actual case is finally heard.

"It is no secret that the impact of e-tolls could be seen in both the recent elections at a provincial level and the local level, with senior membership within the ruling party admitting this in the media," said Duvenage.