[May 2013..Dec 2013] The Gauteng E-tolling Thread

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Tander said:
I'll concede to that...

Back on topic:

If the High Court judges are "bought" by the ANC then this is a fruitless exercise by the DA, not so?
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You must understand how important the Judiciary is to SA. It is one of the three pillars of democracy which can exercise limited oversight over the executive and parliament. Currently 2 of the 3 pillars are controlled by one party, leaving the last one to be the bastion of democracy.

Whilst I believe we have an independent and strong Judiciary, I do add that if the Judiciary falls, I'm out.
 
IzZzy said:
You must understand how important the Judiciary is to SA. It is one of the three pillars of democracy which can exercise limited oversight over the executive and parliament. Currently 2 of the 3 pillars are controlled by one party, leaving the last one to be the bastion of democracy.

Whilst I believe we have an independent and strong Judiciary, I do add that if the Judiciary falls, I'm out.
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It's going though. The rot started with the appointment of Mogoeng Mogoeng.
 
I guy I know in Switzerland has taken to shooting out cameras on the highway. He gets his friend to drive at about 60km/hr and takes careful aim out the passenger window. He claims to have shot out about 25 already. It was reported in the Geneva Tribune a few months back
 
Bizkit87 said:
Like the appointment of Mogoeng mogoeng !!?

That the WHOLE law fraternity frowned upon and advised against it, and we see where that has gotten us.

If you HONESTLY believe the judicial system is fair and impartial, then you have bigger blind-spots in your judgement than I thought.
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A decision of the concourt requires a majority.
And what exactly has Mogoeng done to prove he is anyone's stooge ever since he got appointed to Chief Justice? No judicial system anywhere in the world is totally fair and impartial, they're bound to be influenced by societal or personal prejudices/circumstances/public sentiment.

I must just add that I think Mogoeng is a poor choice for Chief Justice for the multitude of reasons revealed about his past behavior as a judge of lower courts and his religious views are also likely to impact his judgements.
 
MEDIA RELEASE



SUBJECT : FF Plus, TAU SA and the National Taxpayer’s Association to apply to court to have the E-Toll Act declared unconstitutional

ISSUED BY : Adv. Anton Alberts

CAPACITY : FF Plus parliamentary spokesperson: Transport

DATE : 7 November 2013



The Freedom Front Plus, the Transvaal Agricultural Union of South Africa (TAU-SA) and the National Taxpayer’s Association (NTA) will be launching a court case in the North Gauteng High Court to have the Transport Laws and Related Matters Act (also known as the E-Toll Act) declared unconstitutional. The application will at the latest be submitted to the court on Friday.



The FF Plus and the other organisations will contest the constitutionality of the E-Toll Act, amongst others on the following grounds:



· The most important basis of unconstitutionality is that the E-Toll Act was classified incorrectly in the Parliamentary process as a Section 75 Act which will not affect provinces, in terms of the Constitution. We contend that the E-Toll Act should actually have been tagged as a Section 76 Act which does affect provinces. The e-toll system affects provincial powers in particular, as set out in Section 76(3) and Schedule 4 of the Constitution and more specifically provincial matters such as public transport (the purpose of the e-toll system is aimed precisely at making use of public transport), city planning and development (the e-toll system has an influence on it as transport patterns will be changing), road traffic regulation (the e-toll system will be changing transport patterns as motorists start making use of alternative suburban routes), and vehicle licensing (the withholding thereof which will possibly be used by SANRAL to enforce the payment of fines). The Constitutional Court had ordered in Tongoane and Others v Minister of Agriculture and Land Affairs 2010 that a Bill can be classified as a Section 76 Bill when, not only the essence of the act deals with a provincial matter, but also when the effect of an Act will be of such a nature that it would have an effect on provincial matters. In the Tongoane case it was also ruled that an Act which was classified incorrectly is invalid from the outset and has to be sent back to Parliament. The Constitutional Court also explained that the classifying of laws is not merely a technical parliamentary requirement, but that it addresses the essence of democracy. The constitution was signed to give provinces and their residents the opportunity to have a say in national laws if these laws would affect them. If that right is denied them through the incorrect classification and parliamentary process, the democracy of the country would be undermined.



· This was confirmed by the legal opinion which the president received about the Intellectual Property Amendment Bill. It is therefore clear that the E-Toll Amendment Bill will definitely have an effect on provincial matters and capabilities.



· In the second instance, it is argued that the levying of a toll actually entails the collection of taxes, as set out in Section 77. That is why the part which deals with the levying of tolls and toll tariffs in both the E-Toll Amendment Bill and the founding SANRAL Act should actually be contained in a separate Money Bill, which has to be submitted by the Minister of Finance as a separate Bill. Section 77 stipulates that only the Minister of Finance can submit Money Bills.



The FF Plus, the TAU and the NTA will launch the court application as a separate association. The initial name will be known as the Toll Gate Action Group (AG). Various lawyers, apart from the association’s own legal team, have indicated that the application has a very good chance of success. If the application is successful, the implementation of the E-Toll system will most probably be postponed to the end of 2014/ beginning of 2015 due to the election next year and the fact that a new parliament will have to be constituted.



A further explanation for possible success is the information that the president’s own legal team had provided him with legal advice that the E-Toll Act was classified incorrectly. The presidency had acknowledged to the FF Plus telephonically that the president’s legal advisors agreed with the legal advice of Adv. Anton Alberts of the FF Plus. The FF Plus formally applied to view the president’s the legal opinion which he had received, but this was refused, which further strengthens the suspicion that the president had signed the E-Toll Act against the advice of his own legal advisors.



This court application is the culmination of the long process in which the FF Plus had, first in the parliamentary portfolio committee on Transport and later with the president himself, made representations in which it stated that the E-Toll Act (at that point still an Amendment Bill) is unconstitutional.
 
and for some international news : http://citizen.co.za/81432/protesters-burn-french-toll-gantry/

seems the french are not too happy about tolls as well :)

Protesters burn French ‘toll’ gantry

In this video, uploaded to LiveLeak, protesters watch as an unpopular ecotax gantry is burnt down.

As the prospect of e-tolls looms heavily on the minds of Gauteng commuters, a video has surfaced of French protesters tearing down one of the country’s unpopular gantries.

Uploaded on LiveLeak, the video shows dozens of people gathered on an opposite bridge as they watch a gantry burn. To the cheers of the crowd, the gantry topples over.

Protests over the new “ecotax” on trucks kicked off in earnest last month in the northwestern region of Brittany. The French government scrambled to contain anger over the proposed tax as protesters continued to destroy radars set up to help collect the levy, in a revolt that shows no sign of abating.

Wearing red bonnets, the symbol of a 17th-century anti-tax campaign in Brittany, small business owners, fishermen and food industry workers marched in big, sometimes violent, rallies in the region. Some destroyed radars set up in advance along roads to screen passing vehicles and determine whether they need to pay the tax, which would apply to French and foreign vehicles carrying goods weighing over 3.5 tonnes.

Under pressure to rein in its state deficit, France’s Socialist government has announced about 3 billion euros ($4.1 billion) in tax increases for next year, and protests in Brittany come on top of wider opposition to tax hikes.

The ecotax was adopted by the previous right-wing UMP government in 2009 but its implementation had repeatedly been put off. While the Socialist government suspended the levy last week over the unrest, protesters asking for the tax to be completely abandoned have continued to destroy radars, mostly in Brittany but in other parts of the country too.

On Tuesday, the transport ministry said 11 such radars had been vandalised since the beginning of the protest movement, as had four big overhead road structures equipped with cameras and radio receptors.

This equipment would identify trucks liable for the tax thanks to a GPS box installed inside the vehicles.

Controversy has also started to swirl around Ecomouv’, the firm contracted by the previous government to collect the tax, amid “questions” over how the company was awarded the contract.
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DA: E-toll case part of larger campaign

JOHANNESBURG – The Democratic Alliance (DA) on Thursday said the legal challenge it’s launched against e-tolling is part of a far bigger campaign.

Despite an expensive election campaign on the go, it believes it’s not wasting money by launching a legal challenge.

The opposition party is basing its case on a technicality in the so-called e-toll bill , saying it has been incorrectly handled in Parliament and is therefore unconstitutional.

DA Gauteng premier candidate Mmusi Maimane says his party plans to launch other interventions too....
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Read More....
http://ewn.co.za/2013/11/07/DA-E-toll-case-part-of-larger-campaign
 
Why didnt Outa challenge the constitutionality of e-tolls upfront, if the e-toll act is blatantly unconstitutional, did their legal opinion not agree with the unconstitutionality of the act. Seems this might have been a better (and cheaper) route to have followed. Lets hope this works.
 
Cosatu e-tolls protest off to a slow start

Cosatu's protest against e-tolling got off to a slow start in Johannesburg on Friday with a convoy of around 50 cars participating in the drive-slow on the M1 highway.

The drive-slow, which started at the Congress of SA Trade Unions' headquarters in Braamfontein, formed part of its ongoing campaign against e-tolls, labour broking, and the youth wage subsidy.

Cosatu Gauteng secretary Dumisani Dakile earlier told reporters the drive-slow protest would be an effective way to highlight these issues to society.

The drive-slow convoy, escorted by an array of law enforcement vehicles with flashing lights, occupied two lanes of the highway on the M1 with protesters driving between 60 to 70 kilometres per hour on the route.

Most other motorists did not pay much attention to the convoy which proceeded without incident. It did not cause major congestion.

Two political parties, the Democratic Alliance and the Freedom Front Plus, announced further legal action this week to challenge the Gauteng e-tolls project and declare the enabling legislation unconstitutional.

A legal challenge to e-tolling by the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) was dismissed by the Supreme Court of Appeal last month.

Outa announced on October 18 it did not have money to continue the legal fight against e-tolling. Outa's argument remained that the SA National Roads Agency Ltd and government did not conduct a proper public participation process.

Transport Minister Dipuo Peters has indicated that the controversial user-pay system is set to be rolled-out at the end of 2013.


Source : Sapa /wb/fg/jk/jje
Date : 08 Nov 2013 14:55
 
Bernie said:
Why didnt Outa challenge the constitutionality of e-tolls upfront, if the e-toll act is blatantly unconstitutional, did their legal opinion not agree with the unconstitutionality of the act. Seems this might have been a better (and cheaper) route to have followed. Lets hope this works.
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They did, but the act was only signed into law recently so they couldn't go after that at first.
OUTA basically focused on the public participation process (or lack thereof), and the expensive funding mechanism.
The DA challenge will focus on the Transport Bill (which only recently came into law).
 
TBH, the DA is coming way too late to the party. For a party having been privy for years about e-tolling and only at the 11th hour (read: before elections) becoming active does not mean anything. I always had great hopes and faith in the DA to strike some balance with the top-heavy ANC leadership but have not seen anything solid other than electioneering.

Before anyone argues, do yourself a favour and go back in correspondence of the DA within parliamentary sessions and the tenderprocess and you will very well find that the DA was aware of what was happening, but chose to ignore it as it did not fit their strategy/agenda at the time. I don't think any party in this country is sufficiently interest in the wellbeing of the taxpayers or the economy.
 
MagicDude4Eva said:
TBH, the DA is coming way too late to the party. For a party having been privy for years about e-tolling and only at the 11th hour (read: before elections) becoming active does not mean anything. I always had great hopes and faith in the DA to strike some balance with the top-heavy ANC leadership but have not seen anything solid other than electioneering.

Before anyone argues, do yourself a favour and go back in correspondence of the DA within parliamentary sessions and the tenderprocess and you will very well find that the DA was aware of what was happening, but chose to ignore it as it did not fit their strategy/agenda at the time. I don't think any party in this country is sufficiently interest in the wellbeing of the taxpayers or the economy.
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This was already dealt with earlier in this thread.
Articles were posted which showed that the DA was already opposing e-tolling back in 2006.
 
So, no hacking a Kapsch tag, no building of interference units, or getting some dodgy okes to cut down the gantries?
 
Koosi said:
So, no hacking a Kapsch tag, no building of interference units, or getting some dodgy okes to cut down the gantries?
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Nope, in fact I am strongly opposed to illegal methods of fighting this.

At the end of the day, I hope everybody does nothing.
That is the absolute best way to fight this.
 
Start of Gauteng tolling to signal relief for road builders – Raubex
By: Irma Venter

The local road construction industry would remain under pressure in the short term with real relief only possible once the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral), started long-delayed tolling on the Gauteng freeways, said Raubex Group CEO Rudolf Fourie on Monday.

Fourie said Sanral had indicated that it would not build any of the additional toll roads planned before tolling has started on the almost 200 km of freeways upgraded so far under the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Programme.

He was hopeful that tolling would start in the next six months, but noted that this hope had been dashed often over the past few years.

One other factor that could also potentially boost the local road-building sector, was the push for Sanral to take over the responsibility for a number of provincial road networks.

“That will help us, but until then, we are forced to look to Africa to tide us over,” said Fourie.

At home, road specialist Raubex battled low margins, as there were simply too many companies competing for a limited number of contracts. The number of tenders had remained the same in recent years, said Fourie, but the number of competitors had soared.

Around ten road-building companies had already been liquidated, or had to apply for business rescue in the last two years, but some additional attrition was still required.

Fourie expected margins in the local road construction industry to remain under pressure for at least the next six months.

“Again, we hope that our international order book can make up for this pressure.”

Raubex earned around 15% of its revenue in the rest of Africa.

Another diversified earner was the company’s 18-month-old infrastructure business, which reported a R882.3-million order book on Monday.

The division was established for Raubex to attain a more balanced portfolio of work, specialised in disciplines outside the road construction sector, including energy, with a specific focus on renewable energy, rail, telecommunications, pipeline construction and housing infrastructure.

Fourie said the infrastructure division currently made up 10% of Raubex’s revenue, with the short-term aim to achieve a R1-billion order book.

New on the horizon this year would be a possible acquisition in the materials space, he added.

“We have signed a memorandum of understanding, and also await Competition Commission approval.”

Raubex had an integrated model, in that it supplied every aspect of road construction, from stone to bitumen to a completed freeway.

Raubex on Monday reported a 14.6% increase in revenue, to R3.22-billion, for the six months ended August 31, compared with the same period last year.

Operating profit was, however, down 5.6% to R274.5 million, as an improved performance from the mining and commercial quarry operations had been offset by continued challenging conditions in the road construction industry.

The order book was at R6.2-billion, up from R5-billion in 2012.

Raubex declared an interim dividend of 30c a share.

Edited by: Creamer Media Reporter
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This article i find interesting because of this little snippit

"One other factor that could also potentially boost the local road-building sector, was the push for Sanral to take over the responsibility for a number of provincial road networks."

Which is what i feared, basically the municipality will let go of responsibility of maintaining highways.. which then get tolled? I guess they can't fund it from their own coffers anymore, corruption has a price you know. While this is good for road conditions it also means that Sanral will kinda force users to pay as competing roads will just fall on the way side particularly if run by the ruling party.
 
krycor said:
This article i find interesting because of this little snippit

"One other factor that could also potentially boost the local road-building sector, was the push for Sanral to take over the responsibility for a number of provincial road networks."

Which is what i feared, basically the municipality will let go of responsibility of maintaining highways.. which then get tolled? I guess they can't fund it from their own coffers anymore, corruption has a price you know. While this is good for road conditions it also means that Sanral will kinda force users to pay as competing roads will just fall on the way side particularly if run by the ruling party.
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These are the guys who colluded to overcharge SANRAL on he construction price, took years to complete the work and then built such shoddy roads that they had to be re-done at great cost overruns!

Sorry, I have no sympathy for them at all.
 
Around ten road-building companies had already been liquidated, or had to apply for business rescue in the last two years, but some additional attrition was still required.
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Just read in the local newspaper this morning that construction on the road between Caledon and Hermanus [Western Cape] have also been halted for the time being. Contractor has run out of funds.
 
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