The Democratic Alliance’s (DA’s) survey of the impact the tolling of some of Gauteng’s freeways has had on business since the start of this year has revealed a story of retrenchments and lost customers.

The DA earlier this month called on businesses to submit information, including monthly cost breakdowns, on the financial impact of the South African National Roads Agency Limited’s e-tolling system on small, medium-sized and microenterprises (SMMEs).

“The [initial] results confirm what the DA has said all along – e-tolls are killing jobs and businesses in Gauteng,” said the DA Shadow Minister of Small Business Development Toby Chance.

He called on business to continue their submissions, with all information to be compiled in a report and leveraged in the fight against e-tolls on behalf of businesses and all residents of Gauteng.

The response of 50 SMMEs to date showed a collective bill of R850 000 for this year, with one enterprise reporting a cumulative bill of R101 761, equating to a bill of R10 000 a month.

The DA did not name the participating companies.

In a spreadsheet outlining the costs to companies, the DA indicated that only R140 250 of this bill had been paid, with nearly R600 000 not paid and R113 000 passed off as “not specified”.

The survey revealed that SMME’s were passing off some of the unnecessary financial burden onto consumers, resulting in the loss of clients, while others had moved to cut jobs and downscale their business models.

“While these results are a small sample, one can only imagine the impact e-tolls is having on the thousands of other businesses and companies throughout the province,” he said.

Chance reiterated the critical role SMME’s played in South Africa’s economy, contributing 57% of the gross domestic product and accounting for 56% of employment.

Small businesses were expected to create 90% of the jobs required to meet the National Development Plan’s ambitions of creating 11-million jobs by 2030.

“We will never make significant inroads into the 35% unemployment rate if businesses are being forced to increase costs and cut staff to fund e-tolls,” he concluded.