Sanral receives fraction of Gauteng tolls income – Outa
Only 26% of the income received from motorists paying the gantry fees for using some of Gauteng’s freeways since the inception of tolling on these roads, is being pocketed by the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral), the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) said on Monday.
Outa, which is ramping up its legal battle against the State-owned roads agency, had said that, of the alleged R2.9-billion in aggregate e-toll income collected between December 2013 and March 2017, some R2.2-billion, or 74%, had been paid to Austrian-owned e-toll collection company ETC.
“An average of R55-million a month is paid to ETC, and with the current e-toll income levels at around R63-million a month, virtually no money is going toward the e-toll bonds,” said Outa chairperson Wayne Duvenage.
Outa’s comments followed Transport Minister Joe Maswanganyi’s response to a series of Parliamentary questions asked by Democratic Alliance shadow Finance Minister David Ross.
Maswanganyi had pointed out that the R2.2-billion “cannot be regarded as compensation directly to the toll operator” as it included R528.81-million paid by ETC to other service providers for safety and security, building insurance, invoicing and posting, e-tag procurement and mobile messaging.
The payments of R1.69-billion over a 42-month period up to May 2017 were allocated to the toll operator, which was responsible for system maintenance and the customer service centres, the call centre and violator processing centre operations, as well as toll transaction processing and invoicing.
“This is a clear indication of how irrational the scheme has become and what makes matters worse is the compliance levels continue to decline year-on-year,” Duvenage commented.
Maswanganyi said the compliance rate for February 2017 was 29%; however, as year-end processes and audits were yet to be concluded, the value of outstanding debt could not be disclosed.
Outa calculated that, at the discounted value, Sanral would still be owed around R9.2-billion as of the end of March 2017, with further assessments revealing that Sanral was not accounting for e-toll revenues billed at the punitive tariffs, but rather at the discounted e-tag rates.
Further, Outa noted it was unlikely that Sanral would collect a “meaningful portion” of this debt, regardless of litigation outcomes going forward.
Outa had filed its papers in response to Sanral’s declarations against its members, with the case to be heard in both the High Court and Magistrate's Court later this year.
“In all instances, there is a constitutional element to each case, along with the technical elements that will be argued. We believe the courts will not want to be clogged up with numerous cases and that a few cases will first be tested in court to establish the way forward for the e-toll debacle,” Duvenage pointed out.
“Not only are Sanral going to be faced with a tough challenge when it comes to defending the lawfulness of the e-toll decision on constitutional grounds, but we have also uncovered numerous failures when it comes to billing errors and processes within the scheme,” he concluded.
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