'Sanral breaking the law'

Motorists are obliged to pay their e-toll bills whether or not they receive an invoice from Sanral, claims agency spokesman Vusi Mona.

He was responding to the discovery that the Government Gazette listed one set of e-toll charges in the Afrikaans version of the tariff and another, more expensive, in the English version.

Justice Project SA picked up the mistake and said it could mean that Sanral was obliged to halt e-tolling, albeit temporarily.

Said Mona: "The obligation to pay a toll does not arise upon you getting an invoice. The signpost on the road tells you that you are now getting on an e-tolled road. Even if we were not to send an invoice, you still need to pay because you must respond to the road sign.

"It [the issuing of an invoice] is not a legal obligation. We have an obligation because we need to collect the money," he said.

Mona said Sanral had sent a number of invoices to motorists who have not registered for e-tolling, and had not paid within the required seven days, but did not give details.

"Not paying e-tolls is a criminal offence. It is not a traffic offence," he said.

E-tolling went live in Gauteng on December 3 despite resistance from civil society, church leaders, Cosatu and the DA.

The Department of Transport dismissed the contradictory notices in the Government Gazette: "The noted mistake in question won't affect the validity of the legislation. The Department of Transport and Sanral are currently correcting the mistake. A revised version will soon be published."

But Justice Project SA chairman Howard Dembovsky said the error could make the regulations unlawful, and it would be up to a high court to rule on its validity.

"The issue is that they made errors. You are not allowed to have errors in the Government Gazette. The Department of Transport and Sanral are not judges. A court must decide whether the law remains valid. In the past, when they have found errors they have repealed the [notice in the] gazette. But they do not want to repeal the gazette because it is going to cost them money," said Dembovsky.

Sanral said 920310 users had been e-toll registered and the number of motorists buying e-tags had increased to 10 000 a day.

Opposition to Urban Tolling chairman Wayne Duwenage rejected the Sanral figures.

"We simply cannot accept their numbers and we call on Sanral to invite an independent auditor and journalists into their offices to verify the on-screen numbers and the ratio of tagged movements to untagged movements," he said.