South Africa’s Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA) has warned road users in Gauteng not to be “seduced by the apparent lenience” of the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), which today announced an extension to discounted rates for full settlement of e-toll invoices.
HumanIPO reported earlier today SANRAL announced the discounted grace period rate for e-toll invoices covering the period between December 3, 2013 and February 28, 2014 will be extended until July 1. Road users with outstanding e-toll bills will not be charged the three times higher “alternate” rate if they make full payment of outstanding charges by July 1, and register for an e-toll account.
OUTA said the discount extension is an attempt at solving SANRAL’s financial problems – transport minister Dipuo Peters having revealed in April only 10 per cent of e-toll invoices have been paid.
“This is simply a part of their [SANRAL’s] strategy to coax road users who have not signed SANRAL’s onerous terms and conditions into their net, in order to solve the dire long term financial problems that SANRAL now faces for having embarked on e-tolling without obtaining comprehensive public endorsement from all sectors of society,” said John Clarke, spokesperson for OUTA.
OUTA chairman Wayne Duvenage said the alliance predicts SANRAL will continue its “hook, crook and spook” tactics, and expects it to issue a number of summonses to non-compliant road users in order to “scare” those with outstanding bills to take up the discounted rate.
“SANRAL is desperate to get the over 1.3 million non-compliant freeways users to play on their turf by signing their terms and conditions,” said Duvenage.
“However, until there is a dramatic change in SANRAL’s general attitude to the public and its critics and a reassessment of this debacle with the stakeholders, the authorities will be hard pressed to convince the self-respecting road users to capitulate to these manipulative methods. SANRAL have lost the trust and support of the public, which essentially makes this e-tolling scheme unsustainable and unacceptable.”
OUTA encouraged road users to make use of the “dispute your e-toll bill” tool available on the alliance’s website, intended to assist road users in holding SANRAL to account.
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