The Justice Project South Africa (JPSA) has called for South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) spokesperson Vusi Mona to be sacked after comments made on a radio show.
Appearing on Talk Radio 702 yesterday, Mona responded to an SMS asking how users could be sure messages received from SANRAL about e-tolling were not a scam by saying: “Very easy. Raise your IQ a little bit…”
JPSA lead Howard Dembovsky called the comments “highly disrespectful and arrogant” and said Mona should be fired.
“As a public servant and an employee of a state-owned Enterprise, Mr Mona has a duty to demonstrate respect for members of the public and he should know better than to openly and blatantly insult a member of the public who was simply asking a legitimate question of him,” Dembovsky said in a statement.
“At no time during the course of his interview with Gushwell Brooks did Mr Mona apologise for his utterance. Instead, he tried to justify it by saying that people should ‘exercise common sense’.”
The JPSA said Mona should resign, or be replaced by the Ministry of Transport. It said it was not the first time he has mentioned low IQs.
The group is one of a number of groups continuing the fight against the controversial Gauteng e-tolling project, which went live at the beginning of the last month.
The list of opposition groups also includes the Democratic Alliance (DA), Freedom Front Plus (FFP), the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU), the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA), the QuadPara Association of South Africa (QASA) and civil rights organisation AfriForum.
HumanIPO reported earlier this week the DA had confirmed the date for its court case challenging the passing of the e-tolling bill as March 4, referring to the legislation as “unconstitutional” and a form of “job-killing taxation”.
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