So far, organised business hasn’t taken on e-tolls in the Constitutional Court. Rather, it has adopted a “death by a thousand cuts” approach by consistently plugging away at the system. In this interview on CNBC Africa’s Power Lunch, SACCI’s Pietman Roos admits the pays e-tolls, but isn’t surprised why most Gautengers don’t. SACCI’s survey of 6 600 road users revealed that four in five think Sanral’s e-tolls administration system stinks. – AHÂ
ALEC HOGG: Pietman Roos is the Senior Policy Consultant from The South African Chamber of Commerce & Industry – the voice of organised business. He joins us now to discuss the recent investigation SACCI did into e-tolls. Six-thousand-six-hundred motorists were interviewed. Eighty percent of them say it’s awful. Did anybody, apart from the guys who work for Sanral, say it was a good thing?
PIETMAN ROOS: We can’t discount the fact that there might be agent provocateurs (chuckle)… Certainly, it mirrors an earlier survey we did amongst our membership only, and this survey was actually done at the request of the panel. They said ‘look, we see the people are unhappy with the service levels. Can you drill a bit further into this?’ Everybody is affected by bad service, whether you’re a big corporate or a small corporate.
ALEC HOGG: But what is bad service, in this case? You’re on a road and it’s not Sanral’s fault if there’s an accident…
PIETMAN ROOS: I think the problem is if you want to call the call centre, and they can’t help you with queries. When your bills don’t arrive or are late, or when the system is so confusing, you don’t know whether you’re coming or going…that’s what we tested and those are the results we got.
ALEC HOGG: So it’s not the use of the roads, themselves.
PIETMAN ROOS: No. It’s purely administrative.
ALEC HOGG: And after you got these results, which are telling you that things are not great, do you expect then that more Gauteng road users are going to simply say ‘I’m not prepared to pay’?
PIETMAN ROOS: That’s exactly the fear or, at least, the signal we’re getting. There is this growing resentment against paying e-tolls, even amongst those who are registered. You have a twin effect. Firstly, you have a principled opposition to paying your e-tolls.
ALEC HOGG: Because they think it’s corrupt?
PIETMAN ROOS: Exactly. Then you have a second group saying ‘we’re trying to pay. It’s so frustrating. The service is so bad. We’re just going to stop’.
ALEC HOGG: Mark Shuttleworth’s put R350m into a trust to take on things that are unconstitutional. Could e-tolls be unconstitutional?
PIETMAN ROOS: There was an earlier decision on the User-Pay principle as it pertains to e-tolls, but one pertinent question that remains (to my mind) is the role of the Gauteng Province or the Provincial Government in relation to planning how their roads must work. We always hear ‘when this panel was established’ Sanral, amongst others, said ‘it has no legal use. It’s just a talk shop’. I tend to disagree. That’s a quick and dirty assessment of what the Constitutional position really is. Roads are a concurrent jurisdictional point: a province, a municipality, and a national government has concurrent jurisdiction over roads.
ALEC HOGG: So this could be something where Mark’s gains would be put to good effect.
PIETMAN ROOS: We’ll see. There’s been a very strong grassroots movement against the e-tolls, so they’d possibly link up with them and see what can be done.
ALEC HOGG: Are you tagged? Do you pay e-tolls?
PIETMAN ROOS: Officially – yes, because I follow the law.
ALEC HOGG: So you and I are in a rather small minority now – when the Post Office isn’t on strike and the bills actually arrive….
PIETMAN ROOS: The system is not robust. The system is weak. If one of your components can so easily, disrupt your whole payment scheme – like the Post Office strike – why not opt for something simple? The fuel levy is enforced at the point of sale. You don’t have a call centre. You don’t have bills. You pay when you put fuel in your tank.
ALEC HOGG: So that’s what SACCI proposes?
PIETMAN ROOS: That’s where we are at – yes.
ALEC HOGG: Any chance of actually making progress to have that become adopted?
PIETMAN ROOS: I think the strategy is ‘a death by 1000 cuts’. We want to keep on this position that we move to something administratively feasible. The big concern really, is the waste. E-tolls is wasteful. One of the first reports that came out, said they collected X amount, but the cost of collections was more. So clearly, it’s not working and we don’t believe that they’re going to catch up soon enough so rather just go for the fuel levy option.
