Parks Tau urges councils to keep up fight against e-tolls

The Chairperson of the SA Local Government Association (Salga) in Gauteng and City of Joburg councillor‚ Parks Tau‚ has urged municipalities to continue to fight against the e-toll system which he said affected residents of the province.

"I do think that as local authorities we have a responsibility to continue to discuss the impact of e-tolls on our municipalities and residents and continue to urge that we investigate alternatives to the e-tolls system‚" he said.

• Sanral says Mashaba’s e-toll comments are ‘just playing to the gallery’Herman Mashaba was “possibly just playing to the gallery” when he warned that Joburg’s metro police will not be allowed to harass motorists about e-tolls‚ the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) said on Wednesday. 

He said Salga in the province had initiated a discussion on reviewing the impact of e-tolls in Gauteng in 2011.

Tau who was addressing the provincial Salga conference in Kempton Park on Thursday‚ said discussions were initiated before the Gauteng Premier David Makhura formed a commission to investigate what should be done with e-tolls.

"Of course you all know what were outcomes of that commission. But our [Salga's] study indicated... that the e-tolls will have a much greater impact on poor communities on the periphery of our cities.

"And it is they who will bear the great effects of the e-tolls as they have to travel to our inner cities... in search of opportunities."

He said e-tolls would also have an impact on municipalities as people would chose alternative roads to avoid the toll gates. "So this study indicated to us that we need to engage government on the impact of e-tolls with a number of objectives in mind.

"The first is to heed the call of people of Gauteng that the e-tolls system is not ideal for us as a province. "The impact these e-tolls have on our member municipalities to be able to maintain their roads‚" he said.

Salga in the province will elect new leaders on Friday from the 25 delegates each from the three metro councils‚ 10 from each district municipality and 15 from each local municipality. It is still not clear how the new Salga provincial executive committee will look‚ especially with the emergence of the Democratic Alliance supported by the Economic Freedom Fighters in some councils.