Road agency Sanral and the Gauteng provincial government may not be able to write off outstanding e-toll debt, leaving non-paying motorists sitting with their current tab.
The group initially presumed that stakeholders would work to find a mutually acceptable agreement to meet the interests of both payers and non-payers, but it subsequently received a legal opinion that made the question moot. While this means that non-payers of e-tolls would likely have to settle their debts by law, it does not impede a future dispensation that may or may not remove e-tolling from Gauteng, the ISI said.
Following finance minister Enoch Godongwana’s announcement on 26 October 2022 of a new financing mechanism for the Gauteng freeway upgrade debt to replace the failed e-toll scheme – essentially the scrapping of e-tolls – Lesufi indicated that the e-tolls would be scrapped as soon as Gauteng reached an agreement with National Treasury.a deadline that it missed