Subsequent to Sanral’s claims of a successful launch of e-tag lanes at a number of its conventional boom-down plazas‚ the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) says it has received many e-mails from e-Tagged motorists complaining about double charges at these toll-plazas.

These motorists said they had paid at the cash booth and were also charged on their e-Toll accounts‚ OUTA – formerly known as the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance — said.

 It said it appeared that the e-tag readers had registered their vehicle‚ despite them not using the e-tagged lanes at these plazas. Some complained that this situation had also led to their e-Toll account being completely drained and their accounts subsequently moved to SANRAL’s Violations Processing Centre.

“These complaints were also raised by car rental customers‚ who also paid cash at these toll plazas‚ only to find the car rental company had also charged them‚ as the company’s e-Tagged vehicle had registered an electronic charge as well.

 “The members of the public also informed OUTA that when they raised this issue with SANRAL and the car rental companies‚ they were asked to provide proof of the cash payment in the form of an invoice or receipt from the toll plaza.

“These members explained that the common habit is not to collect cash receipts when paying cash at these conventional plazas‚ making it impossible to provide this proof‚” OUTA said.

  “The number of complaints we have received makes this ‘double billing’ problem far too serious for Sanral to ignore‚” said OUTA chairperson Wayne Duvenage.

“In addition‚ some motorists hade also complained to OUTA that certain conventional toll plazas had a lot of congestion at the ‘pay-booth’ lanes‚ which appeared to them as being a deliberate attempt by toll companies to cause congestion in these cash pay-lanes‚ so as to ‘encourage’ road users to get tagged and make use of the less congested electronic lanes.

“In effect‚ the economic benefits of the faster tolled routes are being lost due to the queues developing at these toll-plazas. Customers are telling us they refuse to register for electronic tags for any tolled routes‚ as this is merely one of SANRAL’s tactics to coerce road users to become linked to the irrational and illegally introduced Gauteng e-toll scheme‚” said Duvenage.