Opinion on E-Tolls

A democracy is a government by the people and when the people are not being led, but they are being forced, then there are many questions about the democratic government that need to be soliciting and retorting. The e-Toll system is an electronic tolling system that does not require motorists to stop in order for them to be billed, just as an ordinary toll booth. This system is being imposed on to the motorists of Gauteng and is being masked as a method of raising funds for the development of Gauteng roads and ultimately, South African roads. The imposing of this system is totally out of the scope of a democracy; it is a huge waste of tax payers’ money and should be totally abolished by the South African government.

Several e-tolls are found on various highways in Gauteng and how they work is once you drive under them, it scans your e-tag and license plates (at the front and back), takes an aerial view of your car, measures the size of it (in order to know how much to bill you), finds who’s registered to the vehicle and then they are billed electronically. As fancy as it sounds, vehicle users in Gauteng are on the brink of daylight robbery with the new e-toll system that is about to be imposed on them by SANRAL (South African Road Agency Ltd.), and if nothing is done, the country will find itself being dragged by the neck in a so-called democracy.

The first issue that comes into play with the e-toll system is the financial issue of e-tolls. SANRAL accumulated a debt in excess of 20 billion rands over the past few years with the renovations of the Gauteng highways. The government believes that this debt can be covered over several years by implementing the user-pay principle which is simply: road users paying to be on the roads. Two issues sprout from this. The first, OUTA has done some calculations on the total cost of repaying the debt over those 20 years and instead of the 20 billion rand owed, you find that with the e-toll, Gauteng motorists will be