{"id":61618,"date":"2012-10-06T13:23:00","date_gmt":"2012-10-06T11:23:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=61618"},"modified":"2012-10-08T08:08:58","modified_gmt":"2012-10-08T06:08:58","slug":"dont-purchase-e-tags-samwu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/61618-dont-purchase-e-tags-samwu.html","title":{"rendered":"Don’t purchase e-tags: SAMWU"},"content":{"rendered":"

People should not buy e-tags and should protest against the implementation of e-tolls to ensure the government listens, the SA Municipal Workers’ Union (Samwu<\/a>) said on Friday.<\/p>\n

“This union strongly believes that the pressure of the masses is crucial to forcing government to back down on this blatant extortion,” spokesman Tahir Sema said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“We will aim to make the tolls uncollectable and force the government and SA National Roads’ Agency [Limited (Sanral<\/a>)] to find more equitable ways to pay for road improvements.”<\/p>\n

Earlier, it was announced that a meeting between the inter-ministerial committee on e-tolling and Cosatu<\/a>, chaired by Deputy President Kgalema Motlanthe<\/a>, would convene again next week.<\/p>\n

“The meeting [on Friday] agreed that more time was needed for both parties to consider the proposals on the table,” Motlanthe’s spokesman Thabo Masebe said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Motlanthe led the government delegation and Congress of SA Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Sidumo Dlamini the labour delegations at the meeting at the Union Buildings in Pretoria.<\/p>\n

It followed a July 20 consultation.<\/p>\n

The IMC had been expected to announce its plans on Friday for implementing e-tolling in Gauteng.<\/p>\n

However, Masebe said this would be delayed because the IMC needed time to discuss the issues raised.<\/p>\n

Cosatu has mounted a campaign against e-tolling, which it believes is the wrong way to raise money to maintain the country’s major roads.<\/p>\n

The government’s plans to introduce e-tolling in Gauteng have provoked opposition by motorists and residents of South Africa’s economic heartland.<\/p>\n

Sema said the government should scrap the e-toll project.<\/p>\n

“Government must investigate as to who was responsible for steam-rolling these projects past all the relevant processes. This, for us, is highly suspicious, given the amounts of money involved in the various toll road projects.”<\/p>\n

The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa<\/a>) said it was clear the government intended to launch e-tolling in Gauteng before a court review took place.<\/p>\n

This was judging by the comments made by the transport minister urging the public to buy e-tags this week, it said in a statement.<\/p>\n

Outa was expecting the IMC to announce it was reducing the e-toll tariff and the capped maximum charge.<\/p>\n

Chairman Wayne Duvenage<\/a> said: They [will] go on the charm offensive to woo the public into believing this is the best option.<\/p>\n

“We also believe their announcement will include the acceptance of e-tolling by a few entities that were originally opposed to the plan.”<\/p>\n

Outa rejected e-tolling under the “user-pays” principle.<\/p>\n

Cliff Johnston<\/a> of the SA National Consumer Union said the collection costs and the burden placed on society were independent of the amount charged per kilometre.<\/p>\n

Road users would still have to foot a bill of more than R1.1 billion a year just to cover the electronic toll collection process.<\/p>\n

Automobile Association<\/a> spokesman Gary Ronald said it was worrying that the ETC [Electronic Toll Collection] contracts remained confidential. They should be made public for the citizens who would be paying the toll fees.<\/p>\n

The Justice Project SA said it supported Outa.<\/p>\n

“JPSA… remains vehemently opposed to this ludicrously costly and inefficient way of collecting funding and paying for infrastructure in our country, effectively privatising public roads and enriching Austrian-based Kapsch TrafficCom,” chairman Howard Dembovsky said in a statement.<\/p>\n

There was a risk that the e-toll fees could escalate out of control as had happened with other state-owned enterprises, such as Eskom<\/a>, he said.<\/p>\n

By Devereaux Morkel and Genevieve Quintal<\/p>\n

Related articles<\/h3>\n

E-toll interim order set aside<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

E-tolls will become \u201ckey factors\u201d in property decisions<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

E-tolls: Outa needs R6 million more<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SA Municipal Workers’ Union calls for mass pressure from public against the implementation of e-tolls on highways<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":48957,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[6677,6525,8461,35,9519],"class_list":["post-61618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-e-tag","tag-e-toll","tag-etoll","tag-headline","tag-samwu"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61618"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61618"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":61620,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61618\/revisions\/61620"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}