The hated e-tolls: apartheid's cruel joke from the grave

E-tolling has been the country's most popular punching bag for nearly two years. Everyone seems to hate the idea of paying to drive on roads that they are now using "for free".

Though some might think e-tolling is a Gauteng phenomenon, it is set to spread to most urban areas after president Jacob Zuma signed the Transport Laws and Related Matters Amendment Bill into law last week.

There are clear moves by the DA to try to make it an election issue. You can also see the posturing by Western Cape politicians that pits them against the bully of a national roads agency Sanral that dares to propose new tunnels and costly bypasses in the province.

National government officials - skilled politicians that they are - have taken care not to be seen punting the tolls. But in practice they do support it.

Treasury believes in the "user pays principle" and there is no easier place to apply it than by tolling roads.

The bitter middle class complains that it would be paying twice - aren't our income taxes being used to build and maintain roads?

Yes and no.

Political analyst JP Landman notes in his recent book The Long View, that a fuel levy was used until the late 1980s to fund roadworks. But in the cash crunch to fund apartheid's last throes, the levy was abolished, though not the tax on the fuel. So South Africans still paid for maintaining the roads, but the money went into the general budget. This could not be reversed overnight and has been a vital revenue source even after 1994.

We need proper roads. We will inevitably pay, whether there is a new levy on fuel, higher taxes or a thing that beeps in your car.

The claims that it costs almost as much to collect the tolls as it did to build the roads in the first place are tough to believe and should not be part of the debate any longer.

Let's get on with it. Poor communication has been Sanral's worst mistake in this dragged-out dispute. But refusing to pay tolls will build no highways, only a long road to ruin.