Motorists in Gauteng may be able to claim e-toll refunds due to a Government Gazette notice on charges containing conflicting amounts, according to the Justice Project South Africa (JPSA).
JPSA national chairperson Howard Dembovsky said the English and Afrikaans versions of the e-toll tariff notices published in the Government Gazette contained different amounts.
“SANRAL (South African National Roads Agency Limited) and the Department of Transport have been entirely uncooperative with our requests for clarity on the enforcement process, instead referring us to the regulations,” said Dembovsky in a press statement.
“In the process of reviewing the various notices, we found that there are discrepancies between the English and the Afrikaans versions of the tariff notice published on November 19 2013. Both of the tariff notices were signed by the acting director general of the Department of Transport and therefore have equal but conflicting weight.”
He said JPSA attorneys wrote to the minister of transport Dipuo Peters yesterday afternoon calling upon her to immediately repeal the offending Tariff Gazette and to instruct SANRAL to stop the levying and collection of e-tolls until the matter is corrected.
The controversial Gauteng e-tolling project went live at the beginning of the month, with the JPSA just one of a list of opposition groups which also includes the Democratic Alliance (DA), the Freedom Front Plus (FFP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance, the QuadPara Association of South Africa (QASA) and civil rights organisation AfriForum have vowed to continue the fight against the controversial policy.
OUTA has accused SANRAL of fabricating its figures for e-tag sales, saying its own research showed sales were less than half those claimed by the state-owned company.
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