End of the road for e-tolls! Government confirms delink from next month

End of the road for e-tolls! Government confirms delink from next month

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has welcomed government’s decision to officially scrap e-tolls.

Government is set to officially delink e-tolls from gantries across Gauteng, signalling the end of the system that has drawn much criticism since it’s implementation in 2013.

In a statement released on Thursday, Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwane and Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi confirmed that an agreement was reached to delink the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Scheme.

However, the ring roads that were part of the scheme shall remain the national roads.

The decision was officially gazetted on Thursday.

Transport spokesperson, Collen Msibi explained that parties agreed to enter into a Memorandum of Agreement (MoA) to formalise alternative funding solutions for the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Plan (GFIP) debt repayment and deal with the backlog of maintenance and rehabilitation costs.

“Parties also agreed that the MoA would also regulate the financial and funding contribution towards the South African National Roads Agency SOC Ltd liability in compliance with the policy objectives and institutional framework for road infrastructure management in South Africa,” he said.

The statement explained that all parties agreed that the terms needed to be set in black and white on the MoA for the province to contribute to the backlog of costs around maintenance and rehabilitation.

Msibi said the parties emphasised government’s advancement in its plans to re-purpose the current infrastructure to improve mobility, road safety, and combat crime

Outa’s Wayne Duvenage said after 12 years, sanity has finally prevailed.

“The scheme had all the signs of failure long before it was launched in December 2013, yet government proceeded without listening to its citizens. Despite evidence-based research from Out pointing to the scheme’s looming failures, government persisted for years, resulting in the waste of billions of rand in taxpayers’ money on this expensive and grossly ineffective collection scheme,” he said.

IOL