News Detail

RING-fencing the fuel levy to fund the development and maintenance of South Africa’s roads would be wrong at an ideological level and inefficient, the South African National Roads Agency (Sanral) said on Tuesday. The agency emphasised that the money it received from the levy was not enough to fund road infrastructure and maintenance. Sanral has been severely criticised for going ahead with e-tolling on Gauteng’s freeways despite a massive public outcry led by the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) and the Democratic Alliance (DA).

Outa has argued that a fuel levy would be a much more efficient way to fund the roads. Last year, the DA said two independent studies had confirmed that the levy provided enough funding for the construction and maintenance of roads, so was no need for the building of toll roads. Speaking on the sidelines of a media roundtable on Sanral’s proposed projects for the Western Cape, the agency’s spokesman Vusi Mona said what the country was collecting as a fuel levy was far less than what was needed for improving the road network.

"We collecting about INR 42bn (annually) in the fuel levy nationally, which goes to the Treasury and we get an allocation from the Treasury," Mr Mona said. He said that  INR 20bn was needed for the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project, which meant that 50 Percent of the money collected from the fuel levy would only benefit one rich area, which was not fair for other parts of the country. Mr Mona said revenue collected from fuel levies was actually declining worldwide because of improved engine technology.

"A car that was taking 10 litres per 100km 20 years ago today is taking seven or six litres — that means the fuel levy will decline," he said. "The introduction of hybrid vehicles (means that) fuel consumption is going down, therefore the fuel levy is declining." Mr Mona added there was a lot of confusion around e-tolls and the traditional toll booths.

"You have a lot of people saying, ‘We do not want e-tolls coming into the Western Cape’. We never said we are bringing e-tolls to the Western Cape. We are bringing tolling (which) is not a new phenomenon in the Western Cape. There is a road already that is being tolled," he said.

Sanral said the proposed N1/N2 Winelands Toll Highway Project for the Western Cape would comprise traditional toll booths, not e-tolling gantries as seen in Gauteng. It said e-tolling was only feasible on roads that carried a huge number of vehicles.

Last year, the Western Cape High Court granted the City of Cape Town an interim interdict preventing Sanral from going ahead with the toll project, including the conclusion of any contract or start of construction. The interim relief was granted pending the court’s review of Sanral’s decision to implement the toll project. The review date has yet to be set.

As part of the interdict, Sanral was instructed to hand over all documents relating to its board of directors seeking approval for the tolling project from the transport minister at the time. It was also ordered to hand over to the city a toll feasibility and strategy report, a financial analysis report produced in August 2007 and an "intensive traffic modelling" document.

Sanral regional manager Kobus van der Walt said on Tuesday that Sanral had provided the city with the information regarding the proposed toll road and the agency was now waiting for the court date to be set. He said the court challenge had affected the timelines. The agency had wanted to start on the project in 2010.

The proposed concession route along the N1 stretches from west of the INR 300 interchange to Sandhills. The N2 portion of the proposed toll road concession extends from west of the INR 300 to Bot River. Close to 180km of highway in the province would be tolled should the project go ahead.

Mr Mona said that Sanral was hosting the media roundtable because South Africans in general and the media believed that the agency was only about tolling, when in fact other crucial pillars of its operations were road safety, community development and technology.

"Tolling actually constitutes 16 Percent of our business even within that 16 Percent you split it into two," he said. "Sanral is responsible for 9 Percent of tolls like the much talked-about Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project. You then have 7 Percent of the 16 Percent that has been concessioned to the private sector." DA Western Cape leader Ivan Meyer said on Tuesday that the DA-run provincial administration would not allow tolling of any kind in the province as long as it was in power. "We utterly reject any form of tolling on our highways. The N1 and N2 are vital for carrying people to and from work in Cape Town, as well as for transporting goods in and out of the City of Cape Town," Mr Meyer said.

Source-On Request