Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) COO Ben Theron says electronic tolling (e-tolling) on Gauteng’s freeways should be a “thing of the past” by March next year.
He notes that a test case between Outa and the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) on the collection of e-tolls should head to court in January or February next year.
He says Sanral has abandoned a long-agreed-upon test case, but that Outa will push for a test case by default.
Theron says he is positive that the High Court will declare the Gauteng e-tolling system illegal.
Should the case progress to the Constitutional Court, he is confident that Outa’s arguments are solid enough to secure victory.
Driving Outa’s case are a number of arguments, including what Theron notes were Sanral’s failure to consider funding alternatives to e-tolling and environmental-impact assessments on the toll project not being done “properly”, as well as the fact that there is no integrated public transport system available as an alternative for Gauteng commuters.
•Theron spoke at the FleetX Conference 2017 held in July.