Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage said on Tuesday it is good that Sanral is encouraging people to use e-tags.Motorists can now recharge their e-tags and use them at “boom down” toll plazas without the credit in their e-tags being used to pay off their historic Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project e-toll debt.
However, Minister of Finance Enoch Godongwana said in his Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement speech in October 2022 that Sanral’s GFIP debt was R47 billion.Godongwana also announced that to resolve the GFIP funding impasse, the Gauteng provincial government had agreed to contribute 30% to settling Sanral’s debt and interest obligations, while the national government covered 70% of this debt and interest obligation.
Duvenage said on Tuesday he did not know how the Gauteng province could try to collect the GFIP debt from motorists because Sanral is the only entity that can collect that debt.He also did not know how Gauteng would be able to pass on the cost to the citizens of Gauteng “because you don’t get a bill from the Gauteng Province”.
“They have been there, they have done that, it didn’t work. It’s not good for government to be at war with its citizens,” he said.Duvenage also believes there is a lack of clear understanding between Sanral, the National Treasury and the Department of Transport about what this debt is.