"DA Shadow Minister of Transport, Ian Ollis, has called on the South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL) and the Department of Transport to clarify how e-tolling was pursued in South Africa despite evidence existing that the project has not been successful in other countries, such as Portugal. In a statement issued today (1 July 2013), Ollis refers to reports of Portugal’s ailing e-toll project that emerged last week which said that lower than expected revenue from e-tolls has made Portugal’s so unsustainable that the country’s road chief has warned that there will not be enough money for road maintenance. Portuguese road agency Estradas de Portgual chief, António Ramalho, reportedly said that the agency failed to collect more than €30 million (±R386 million) from e-toll transgressors. “They found that on average 19% of toll-road users fail to pay for using the toll roads and that e-tolls have effectively forced thousands of cars onto secondary roads,” Ollis said. “He further admitted that expected revenue from e-tolls is far below those anticipated by initial studies.” Ollis relayed statistics which indicate that failure to pay, amongst others, has increased administrative fees from €17 million (±R218 million) in 2011, to €42 million (±R540 million) in 2012. According to Ollis, Portugal’s e-tolling failure is clear evidence that e-tolling does not work. “It can only be deduced from South Africa’s failure to learn from Portugal’s e-tolling woes, that neither SANRAL nor the Department of Transport conducted thorough research into the viability of e-tolling,” Ollis said. “If they did, they negligently opted to ignore the Portuguese example.” Ollis said that contrary to SANRAL’s repeated assertions, e-tolling does not create funding for road maintenance. All it will do is to create a massive administrative burden, undermine economic growth, hurt the poor, and ultimately result in job losses, Ollis said. “The Department of Transport and SANRAL now need to do the right thing and abandon e-tolling,” he concluded."
Posted on: Mon, 01 Jul 2013 12:48:21 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015