'Tolls not reality yet'
Image by: The Times / Halden Krog / Gallo Images
While Gauteng motorists can expect to start paying to travel on most of the province's highways soon, the cplans still face heavy opposition.
Cosatu secretary-general Zwelinzima Vavi yesterday issued a stern warning to the ANC-led government, saying that should it implement the tolls, it stands a huge risk of crossing swords with its own people.
This follows judgment in the Constitutional Court yesterday that the government had a right to determine policy within the framework of the constitution - a decision that now paves the way for the South African National Roads Agency to implement e-tolling on certain Gauteng roads.
Reading out the Constitutional Court's judgment, Deputy Chief Justice Dikgang Moseneke said: "What is more, absent of any proof of unlawfulness or fraud or corruption, the power and the prerogative to formulate and implement policy on how to finance public projects reside in the exclusive domain of the national executive, subject to budgetary appropriations by parliament."
Speaking to journalists at the Cosatu conference in Midrand, Vavi said he was not surprised by the judgment, but that it was "immaterial" to his federation's opposition against e-tolls.
"We are still in discussions with the government, and it has not said it is going to steam ahead with [e-tolls].
"But we want to warn the government: don't even think about it because you are just going to bring in an unnecessary conflict between yourselves and the people that voted for you," he said.
Wayne Duvenage, the chairman of the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance, urged the public to "do what they did in April", and refuse to buy e-tags as there were still "major loopholes" in the proposed system.
At a media briefing in Johannesburg yesterday, Duvenage said the public was not consulted sufficiently by Sanral on "a major policy implementation decision".
"Remember e-tolling was going to start on the 30th [of April] and there was no clear indication that it was going to be interdicted.
"Most motorists decided to watch the space and not buy e-tags.
"Lo and behold, they didn't have to. We're advocating that possibly the same behaviour could happen again," Duvenage said.
Before an interdict was granted in the Pretoria High Court, the ANC and Cosatu formed a task team to investigate an alternative fund raising model to repay the R20-billion loan the government used to upgrade roads.
The Cabinet also established a government task team, led by deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe, to probe the e-tolls debacle.
Vavi said it was still in talks through these platforms, and added that should e-tolls be implemented before discussions have been concluded, the federation would do everything in its power to oppose the e-tolls.
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Posted 245 days agoMicaParis
Posted 245 days agoConcourt does not necessarily deal with complexity of the law and does not directly digest the matters as the lower courts does but simply apply and protect the constitution and not all the cases have got a validity to go to Concourt but only constitutional matters.
My legal understanding and application of the law suggests that Outa will still come up with the desired results as the Concourt decision does not directly affect the outcome of the ongoing High court case. As such, the Zuma-Sanral brigades must not be happy before the High court case is concluded.
The vocal fatal point which is going to destroy the state case in the High court is the issue of tax double standard exactly on the ‘’same matter (road facilities) for the same reason’’ as road users are already paying taxes otherwise for sustainable care and development of the roads.
The Councourt only dealt with the ‘’sole’’ issue of an interdict in relation to constitutional application of the law and did not deal with the ‘’justification’’ of the double standard tax payment on the same thing for the same purpose. If the Concourt could have given an exception to the general rule against tax double standard the Outa case could have been totally destroyed but unfortunately Concourt did not have any legal reasonability to do that in terms of the Income Tax Act or any other relevant law except the constitution which is completely silent on the issue of ‘’tax double standard’’.
The government is wasting tax payer’s money for nothing there is no way they can get this one right unless they amend the Income Tax Act to cover their fallacy for the deficit created through the 2010 Fifa World cup developmental goals.
I encourage road users of the soon-to-be-tolled highways to wait and see the outcome of the North Gauteng High Court's review in November we will be speaking a different language by then.
m1si2zi3nzo4
JoburgAdvocacyGroup
That said, we're concened that the ConCourt judgement on the interdict sets a very concerning precedent, which essentially allows the executive to implement policy unchallenged ...
m1si2zi3nzo4
One disconcerting development is the creeping conservatism of the Concourt, perhaps because of the blasting it has had from Zuma. Perhaps the influence of Mogoeng is taking root, and subverting the role that that court is supposed to protect - the rights of the citizens against the state abuse. By nature, this is above the man-made laws, which are an articulation of the wishes of the ruling party elite.
Failure to understand the difference between the citizens' civic rights - which are protected in our constitution, and the doctrine of the separation of powers, is our undoing. The Concourt needs to take seriously its role of "developing the common law to the extent that the legislation does not give effect to that right" It is a given that the elite laws would always protect their cultures - which are inherently dominant, and oppressive to the powerless - rather than promote the rights of the people. It will be a sad day if this last hope of our survival, were to be allowed to collapse into this all-powerful ruling party elite.
The point is that even among the ruling elite, only those who stand to gain from this e-tolling, and thus support it. They do not constitute the majority, even amongst this tiniest of the minorities. Let alone the general public.
Spitfire
This alternative method or process would have resolved the issue completely and neatly without having to deal completely remove the situation of "harm and convenience" from both parties. The Constitutional Court needs to review their judgement.
RSA.MommaCyndi
Posted 245 days agoI refuse to pay for something that I have already paid for. Unhook the fuel levy from the general fiscus and put it back into a dedicated fund. That will pay for ALL of the upgrades just like it was designed to do.
SuiGeneris
Very good argument !
MicaParis
Tax issues are an ''ongoing concern'' as such that should be ''I refuse to pay for something that I am (have) already paid (paying) for''
That statement is going to be the ''crux'' of the matter in the High Court in November, it is a total violation of Income Tax Law on ‘’tax double standard’’ and unfortunately there is no justification and exception to the general rule on ''tax double standard'' in the enabling legislation (Income Tax), that is why Justice Moseneke did not have any legal basis to protect the Zuma -Sanral wishes in terms of the law but only gave a temporary ‘’political damage control’’ which the President and Sanral will not survive the relevant legal repercussions in the High Court where the case will be examined in details.
The best solution to have any glance at the success for the government is only if they can amend the income tax but the issue will be moot by the time the amendment is effected unless if there can be tactical delays to allow for that leverage but that will be denial of justice to Outa.
Note also in advice, should Zuma feel to amend the Income Tax, that the amendment will not pass the ‘’constitutional validity test’’ as there cannot be any justifications for a ‘’wrong’’ (double standard tax) thing in terms of the common law standard and the South African positive law, also to a certain extent, in terms of the morality issue as that will morally amount to stealing unfairly from the tax payers.
RSA.MommaCyndi
I suppose it will depend on how good the government is at arguing the reason for the original Fuel Levy. Since they un-hooked it from the road fund, they could very well put it down to simply being general revenue. It isn't like they are incapable of any moral decisions when it comes to money to begin with.
MicaParis
m1si2zi3nzo4
Posted 245 days agoSuiGeneris
Posted 245 days agoMicaParis
I will be doing extensive research on ''tax double standard'' justifications, the furthest I have gone suggests that it failed in USA and Australia and clearly violate common law principles.
Which means that the government will have to introduce another ‘’tax formation’’ as they did with ‘’property tax’’ to deal with their fallacy but still that will not pass the ''equality clause'' on the same ''class of people'' paying tax in our case as the ''tax payers'', my knowledge of tax law suggests that the government might suggest that only ‘’Gauteng users’’ pay but still for the purpose and meaning of the definition of the ‘’tax payers’’, Gauteng users will still be regarded as ''tax payers'' in terms of the Income Tax ''Act'' which means such a ruling will violate the constitutional equality clause on the ‘’same class’’ of the payers thereby legally invalid in terms of section 2 of the constitution on supremacy of the constitution.
SuiGeneris
Posted 245 days agoAs we know, we pay more for fuel in Gauteng than at the coast, so it can be implemented that a special fuel levy will only apply for Gauteng if they want to exclude the rest of the country.
It will also be more fair because taxis will be included.
I cant see why taxis should be excluded from paying toll fees when they use the roads.
SuiGeneris
RSA.MommaCyndi
Gauteng may have more cars but other parts of the country probably have more road area (bigger provinces need more roads to get from one end to the other) so why should it be only us paying? Don't forget that Gauteng was just the first province on a roll out plan which was going to cover every single highway in the country.
QPCLCD308
The South African Government (Presidency) & Department of Jutice have got a serious problem of hiring legal advisers on nepotism and favouritism, for argument sake I doubt if Zuma’s legal advisers really have got legal qualifications as even a newly graduated LLB student cannot make mistakes that ‘’the Zuma legal advisers’’ are doing but however unfortunately it is now severely backfiring! The most painful part of it is that only the poor lame tax payer must lick the wounds and clean up the mess on behalf of the political bureaucrats.
The string of embarrassing legal blunders from the very high Office (Presidency) suggests that although you do not need academic substance and intellect to be a politician but seriously there is a need of such if you are an administrator or a manager, as such cadre deployment will not help that course but only waist lot of money on unnecessary legal fees that could have been avoided through academic reasoning.
m1si2zi3nzo4
MicaParis
I am impressed, I think my learnent friend Qpclcd308 have clearly answered your question!
Jealous down I think that is correct and very sensual out of ...308, finally making sense!
SuiGeneris
rahima
Posted 245 days agoSo it is the people against the ANCpf.
swona1