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Nothing has changed on the e-toll front

Despite Premier Lesufi’s comment during his State of the Province Address on 20 February that “e-tolls have been scrapped permanently in our province”, the situation remains exactly as it has been since the Finance Minister announced in his October 2022 Medium-Term Budget Policy statement (MTBPS). The e-toll system remains intact and continues to bill motorists every day.

"We have heard these comments that the decision has been made and the e-toll scheme is ‘on the verge of being scrapped’ many times over the past few years, and yet nothing has formally changed,” says Wayne Duvenage, OUTA CEO.

There appears to be no ending to this debacle and, until the e-toll system is formally turned off, everything that Premier Lesufi and others have stated on this issue remains just words.

There are still businesses and individuals who continue to pay their e-toll bills, because they continue to receive their invoices. Some businesses refuse to stop paying until the final decision has been announced to turn the scheme’s billing system off and, until that happens, they remain uncompetitive and subjected to unnecessary expenses.

OUTA calls on the four parties (Treasury, Minister of Transport, Sanral and the Gauteng provincial government), who are all party to this never-ending imminent decision, to bring this scheme to a close once and for all. The issue of who will pay for what has gone on for too long now. For finality to be achieved, Sanral must publish a gazette to amend the initial declarations of the Gauteng freeway network as tolled roads. This shouldn’t take longer than a few days. We hope the Minister of Finance will announce the final closure dates in his Budget this week so that we can put this saga behind us once and for all.

More information

See recent OUTA statements on the promised end to e-tolls and the financial issues here and here.

Find out more about OUTA's campaign against e-tolls here.