Motorists still waiting for gazetted notice shutting down e-tolls

Despite Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi’s comment during his state of the province address on February 20 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). According to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), 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.

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

The organisation points out that 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.

As such Outa is calling on the four parties — the 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”.

“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. Outa hopes that the minister of finance will announce the final closure dates in his budget this week so that motorists can put this saga behind them once and for all.”