E-tolls: ANC “lies” over Sanral contract set to be exposed

Tshwane Mayor and Gauteng Premier Candidate Solly Msimanga has promised to lift the lid on “a number of lies” the ANC have allegedly shared about the contract Sanral have in place for the e-tolls system.

Msimanga claims that the party and local authorities have deceived South Africans on the length of the agreement in place. Officially, the contract renewal was pencilled in for December 2018, only for it to be sheepishly revealed that the deal will continue running for another 12 months.

E-tolls: What are the ANC accused of lying about?

The DA representative believes this “miscommunication” is actually a bunch of hogwash. He suspects that the ANC have deliberately mislead the public, in order to squeeze another year of payments out of motorists:

“The ANC has lied to the public and made us believe that the e-toll contract was coming to an end last year December when they had already renewed the contract on 3 April 2017. This means the contract ends on 2 December 2019.”

“However, the terms of the contract indicate that SANRAL has the option to further extend the contract for a period of 24 months. This clearly indicates that the failing ANC is full of lies, empty promises and cannot be trusted to govern Gauteng.”

Solly Msimanga

A disastrous campaign

The e-tolls scheme has been, quite frankly, a disaster since its inception in 2013. Compliance is at an all-time low, with just 25% of road users even bothering to pay the fees. It’s a plan that has plunged Sanral into billions of rands worth of debt and seems to be universally disliked by all but the ANC.

The situation has deteriorated to a point where Sanral are attempting to summons rogue road users to court. But of course, this is somewhat of flawed approach, given that hundreds of thousands of drivers would all have to be reached. Good luck with that paperwork, guys.

Worryingly, in order to offset the loss incurred by the e-tolls system, Sanral recently repurposed R1.6 billion from non-toll business to the toll road portfolio. This means that Sanral’s 13 000 km of non-toll roads is now helping to pay for just 187 km of Gauteng’s e-toll roads.

• Msimanga will be joined by fellow DA party members Manny de Freitas and John Moodey at a press briefing on Thursday morning, where they will elaborate on their claims.