Photo by: Reuters
he City of Cape Town has urged the Western Cape High Court to consider the “interests of justice” when it rules on its application to have Sanral’s decision to toll roads in the Cape Winelands reviewed and set aside.
The City’s advocate Geoff Budlender SC urged Judge Ashley Binns-Ward to condone the delay of the application because it is a matter of “huge public importance”.
In 2008, the Transport minister declared sections of the N1 and N2 toll roads, but it took the City four years to take legal action.
In 2013, Sanral was interdicted from signing a contract with preferred bidder Protea Parkways Consortium pending the finalisation of the City’s review application.
In over a week of oral submissions, the court has heard that Sanral’s “intent to toll procedure was unfair” and that public participation was a “sham”.
Budlender told the court earlier on Tuesday, that the court should condone the delay as this case “will affect literally millions of people over [the next] thirty years”.
He said the case is not about whether “tolling is a good or bad thing”, neither is about “what funding mechanism should be used to upgrade roads”.
Rather, the City asserted it was a “case about decisions which were not lawfully made”.
Budlender argued that if the tolls project was allowed to go ahead simply because the City delayed bringing its application, public money “amounting to at least R59-billion, at the lowest estimate, will be spent on a project that has not been lawfully authorised”.
He urged the court to balance all the factors, including delay, and decide what was in the interests of justice.
Outside court, the City’s mayoral committee member for Transport, Brett Herron, told journalists that the City was “cautiously optimistic” that the judge will find in their favour.
He said: “In considering whether to condone the delay, it has to consider the consequences of not condoning it.”
A substantial part of the City’s argument has been that the project was not “socially and financially viable” and would have an adverse impact on Capetonians, particularly poor people.
Last week, Sanral argued that tolling the roads was the only way to fund the upgrading of South Africa’s road network.
It accused the City of launching its application for political reasons and argued that the City “wants the benefits of enhancement to highways, without assuming the cost”.
Sanral also said the project would be set back by ten years, and the prospect of road upgrades in the next ten to fifteen years would be remote, should the court agree with the City.
The question of delay, however, has been a consistent bugbear for the City’s case.
On Monday, Judge Binns-Ward said the City had not been “strong on explanation” for the delay.
Judgment in the case has been reserved.