Transport Minister Fikile Mbalula says if e-tolls on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) are scrapped, it’s doubtless they will get replaced by one thing else.
“I am sure you are hoping that we scrap [e-tolls],” Mbalula mentioned final week throughout a briefing on the brand new sensible card driving licence.
But he added: “For each scrap, there’s all the time one other factor that comes up and all of that.
“But don’t say that I said e-tolls will be scrapped. Wait for me to come back with [Finance] Minister [Enoch] Godongwana,” he mentioned.
This is a reference to an earlier assertion by Mbalula, which he repeated on Friday, that “before or at the MTBPS [medium-term budget policy statement in October] we will make the big announcement about the e-tolls”.
Mbalula additionally referred to the cupboard lekgotla, which begins this week.
Alternative mechanism
Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) CEO Wayne Duvenage mentioned the organisation is trying ahead “to the end of e-tolls”.
Duvenage mentioned Mbalula’s feedback suggesting one thing will replace e-tolls if they’re scrapped means National Treasury “is going to find another mechanism [to raise funds]”.
“But as we have always said, the mechanism has already been in place and they have been financing it [e-tolls] through Treasury allocations for the last six years and from taxes collected from the fuel levy,” mentioned Duvenage.
“Hopefully they don’t see a need to increase the fuel levy to do this,” he mentioned.
Duvenage admitted Outa recommended 10 years in the past that the federal government ought to finance the GFIP by a ten-cents-per-litre ring-fenced enhance within the gas levy.
“But they have already increased the fuel levy, so that horse has bolted and they have done it. If they want to do it again, it would be frowned upon by Outa.”
Outa has highlighted that the gas levy has elevated by greater than R2.50 per litre because the Gauteng freeway improve started in 2008.
Duvenage harassed that e-tolls have failed since they have been launched in 2013, which was a matter and consequence Outa had warned the federal government about since 2012.
“It is our view that October’s announcement will lead to the e-toll scheme’s cancellation and the gantries on the highways will be put to other use, such as improving road safety and crime prevention,” he mentioned.
There have been reviews that the GFIP e-toll gantries may very well be used to implement velocity restrictions on the freeway.
Fuel costs down, gas levy up?
Outa and the Automobile Association (AA) final month expressed concern that authorities might hijack the patron advantages of anticipated reductions in gas costs to extend the gas levy and use these funds to pay for the compensation of the GFIP bonds.
AA spokesperson Layton Beard mentioned the affiliation can be sad if the federal government elevated the gas levy to pay for the GFIP.
Beard mentioned the overall gas levy generates R90 billion to the fiscus yearly and the AA helps the usage of a portion of those funds to pay for the GFIP, however that is topic to the gas levy not being elevated and the federal government utilizing the present funds being raised to pay for the GFIP.
Outa and the AA’s feedback adopted Mbalula’s admission in June this 12 months {that a} resolution was taken by cupboard on e-tolls, which was taking authorities within the route of the gas levy, however this plan was scrapped due to the then-sharp will increase in oil and gas costs.
Mbalula moved rapidly to quell hypothesis about a rise within the gas levy to fund the GFIP, stressing that “government has not made any pronouncements” about the way forward for e-tolls.
“We therefore appeal to all stakeholders to desist from rumour mongering that is intended to create anxiety among motorists,” he mentioned.
Read: Government scraps plan to make use of gas levy as an alternative of e-tolls to pay for GFIP [July 2022]
Fuel value discount
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy (DMRE) on Monday introduced that the value of each 93 and 95 unleaded and lead substitute petrol will lower by R2.04 per litre efficient from midnight on Tuesday.
This is the second consecutive month that the petrol value has been diminished, after steep will increase after world oil costs soared following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February this 12 months.
The petrol value lower is going on regardless of the DMRE approving a 30.66-cents-per-litre enhance within the slate levy to 83.68 cents per litre efficient from 7 September.
Read: Petrol value to drop by R2.04/l on Wednesday
Duvenage mentioned on the weekend that Outa will not relent in making use of stress on the subject of defending motorists from pointless prices and irritating processes, such because the renewal of driving licence playing cards, e-toll selections, the Administrative Adjudication of the Road Traffic Offences (Aarto) Act and a bunch of different inefficiencies that give rise to poor service supply.
In a judgment handed down in January to an software lodged by Outa, the High Court in Pretoria declared the Aarto Act and Aarto Amendment Act, which offers for the introduction of the driving licence factors demerit system, unconstitutional and invalid.
Read:
The Department of Transport has lodged an software to attraction this judgment.
