The Bikers Against Tolls (BAT) are planning protest action against the South African National Roads Agency Limited’s (SANRAL) controversial e-tolling system in both Cape Town and Johannesburg on June 15.
“This is in opposition to the imminent activation of urban tolling and the pending N2 Wine[lands] route e-tolls. BAT is expecting 2,000 plus motorcycles to attend the Gauteng protest and 1,500 in Cape Town,” said James Sleigh, founder of BAT, in a statement released by the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA) on Facebook.
BAT will be protesting along the M3 and N12 “ring road,” which will begin at the WorldWear shopping centre in Fairlands.
The Cape Town protest route will commence along the N2, where SANRAL want to implement the Winelands toll route. The protest will being in Ottery and end in Botsriver.
BAT said it outrightly denounces e-tolling because: “Urban centres have been targeted with no suitable alternative routes, the citizens are being held captive by this concept” and “there has been no transparency regarding the contracts given or loans acquired.”
BAT is also against e-tolling because: “The administration of the e-toll collections is costly and drastically flawed, the maladministration and theft of public funds could have been used for road improvement” and “fuel levies are not being used to fund roads and infrastructure development as what it was designed to do.”
Furthermore, BAT said the reasons given in support of e-tolls and the censoring of the contracts provided for public study is unacceptable.
“BAT denounces the confidentiality being afforded to international companies involved in the e-toll system and no respect to the citizens of the Republic of South Africa who arte expected to blindly pay for this extra monetary burden,” said Sleigh.
BAT said it and its supporters will continue to be in opposition to urban e-tolling until government takes responsibility for financial losses incurred due to its “poor financial management”.
BAT will also seek to increase and expand their protest action to other cities in the country until the government respects the will of the country’s citizens and e-tolling is scrapped.
“BAT is in full support of COSATU (Congress of South African Trade Unions) and of OUTA. We will not relent in our efforts to oppose unjust laws or regulations,” concluded Sleigh.
