Outa says it will defend motorists against e-toll debt

The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) says it will continue with its plan to defend motorists who receive a summons from the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) for outstanding e-toll debt.

It follows comments by Mampho Modise, deputy director-general of public finance at the National Treasury, who told Moneyweb on February 26 that “Gauteng has agreed that debt should and will be collected”.

Outa questioned Modise’s statement, calling it confusing since e-toll debt by motorists is collected by Sanral and not the Gauteng provincial government.

“What makes the threat of going after those with outstanding e-toll debts more confusing is that Sanral stopped issuing summonses against e-toll defaulters in 2019, and most of this debt has now been prescribed,” said Wayne Duvenage, CEO of the civil action organisation.

In October 2022, finance minister Enoch Godongwana announced the end of e-tolls. In January 2023 Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi announced that R6.9bn will be refunded to those who had paid e-tolls, a statement on which he has since backtracked.

At last week’s state of the province address, Lesufi announced that the process to switch off e-tolls would start by March 31. He also said the provincial government had agreed to pay R12bn towards Sanral’s e-toll debt to finalise the matter.

Duvenage said: “We are left more confused than ever by the latest announcement by Modise. Who should we believe, especially since it’s election year with different politicians making so many different promises?”

He accused government of being indecisive and incapable of implementing its own policies. “Between Sanral, premier Lesufi, minister Godongwana and the department of transport, it seems that nobody knows what is really going on when it comes to finalising the e-toll debacle.”

Outa said it seemed that those in government who were intent on dragging out the e-toll matter had forgotten the test court case between Sanral and Outa supporters for summonses issued for outstanding e-toll debt, which remained in limbo.

Since February 2019, Outa lawyers have been defending 2,028 cases on behalf of e-toll defaulters who received summonses from Sanral, with a total value of more than R262m. Of these, 1,929 cases with a total value of R112m were brought in magistrate’s courts and 99 cases in the high court, valued at over R150m.

An aspect of this case is challenging the constitutionality — and therefore the lawfulness and enforceability — of the e-toll scheme.

In March 2019, Sanral’s board passed a resolution to stop e-toll summonses. In the meantime all these cases have been placed on hold, leaving the legal matter in limbo.

Duvenage confirmed that Outa would defend every motorist who received a summons from Sanral for outstanding e-toll debt, provided that they gave Outa the mandate to do so and that the organisation had the funds to do so.

“We will not merely accept government’s irrational plan to collect debt on their inefficient, costly and largely unworkable system, especially since they themselves announced that e-tolls will be cancelled,” he said.

Since its implementation in 2013, the e-toll scheme has been opposed by Gauteng motorists and organisations such as Outa and the AA. About 10-12% of road users in Gauteng are paying for e-tolls, according to Outa.

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