SANRAL criticises OUTA claim that it overpaid for Gauteng freeways

12 April 2016 - 18:24 By Sipho Masombuka

Roads agency SANRAL has slammed as a deliberate attempt to denigrate the agency’s reputation a report by Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) stating that the agency overpaid by more than R11bn for the R17.9bn Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP). In February OUTA released a report comparing the cost of the GFIP to 11 regional and international case studies‚ finding that on average‚ Sanral overpaid by 321% per kilometre.Sanral's financial woes self-inflicted: OutaThe agency's project manager‚ Alex van Niekerk‚ said OUTA's report was flawed in that it based its conclusions on international studies on the construction of roads under different conditions and units of measurement.Sanral lying about more payments‚ says OUTA“It is a very obvious mistake‚ confusing the unit of measurement. It incorrectly extracts the construction costs in Europe and based its calculations on these variants in millions of euros instead of billions as stated in the study. That in itself is a 100‚000 percent mistake. So it is as good as saying we have paid for GFIP R20-million instead of saying we have paid for the GFIP R20-billion. A vast difference‚” he said.Nazir Ali‚ the agency's CEO‚ said: “This project has gone to court five different times‚ twice to the constitutional court. The question arises then why is there such an insistence from this organisation called OUTA to try and question and denigrate the integrity of Sanral. They confuse millions with billions”He said OUTA had two calculations which showed that there was only 152% over expenditure while another calculation stated 321%‚ saying it was confusing which figure of over expenditure was then correct.Ali said though OUTA's own “expert” calculations pointed to 152%‚ they went along with the headline grabbing 321% figure.“What they have done can be regarded as a deliberate misrepresentation...to denigrate the integrity of Sanral with various allegations that they have made over the years against ourselves when no court in the country has found Sanral to be corrupt or anything of that nature‚” Ali said.He said instead of encouraging respect for the law‚ Outa was encouraging lawlessness.“None of us can be selective in terms of which law we will respect or obey and which one we will not‚” he said...

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