{"id":71916,"date":"2013-03-06T16:00:05","date_gmt":"2013-03-06T14:00:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=71916"},"modified":"2013-03-08T10:22:15","modified_gmt":"2013-03-08T08:22:15","slug":"cosatu-condemns-e-tolling-bill","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/technology\/71916-cosatu-condemns-e-tolling-bill.html","title":{"rendered":"COSATU condemns e-tolling bill"},"content":{"rendered":"

Toll road legislation was rushed through the National Assembly without an opportunity for public debate, Cosatu<\/a> said on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

“This bill … is a matter of great public concern, and there should have been proper parliamentary hearings into the matter,” Congress of SA Trade Unions spokesman Patrick Craven<\/a> said in a statement.<\/p>\n

“We demand that the National Council of Provinces rectifies this by holding public hearings and does not rubber-stamp the legislation.”<\/p>\n

The Transport Laws and Related Matters Amendment Bill legalises the e-tolling of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project.<\/p>\n

It was approved in the National Assembly on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

Transport Minister Ben Martins<\/a> said the bill was essential to enable “the appropriate implementation of the e-tolling system”.<\/p>\n

The measures were required for the provision of public transport and other projects in Gauteng, he said. He rejected calls for e-tolling to be scrapped, saying the non-collection of tolls might impact negatively on the ability of the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral<\/a>) to raise capital for infrastructure development projects.<\/p>\n

Inability to collect revenue would also damage the credit reputation of Sanral among investors, and could negatively affect Sanral’s and the government’s international ratings, Martins said.<\/p>\n

Most opposition parties strongly opposed the bill. It now goes to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.<\/p>\n

Craven said Cosatu would continue to fight against e-tolling, as it was a burden on the poor.<\/p>\n

“The extra cost will also come just after this week’s big fuel price increase, just before Eskom<\/a>‘s first eight percent tariff increase… and the 15 percent rise in the fuel levy, to R2.13, on 3 April, announced in the Budget,” he said.<\/p>\n

“Large numbers of private vehicle users simply do not have a single extra rand to spare.”<\/p>\n

The trade federation would continue its mass action against e-tolls, which had already seen marches and drive-slow protests on Gauteng’s highways.<\/p>\n

Craven urged motorists not to register with the Sanral, not to buy e-tags and to make the system of collection unworkable.<\/p>\n

An application by the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa<\/a>) to scrap e-tolling was dismissed in December by the High Court in Pretoria.<\/p>\n

The court granted Outa leave, on January 25, to take the matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.<\/p>\n

A date for the appeals court hearing had yet to be set.<\/p>\n

Craven said Cosatu would support Outa’s appeal.<\/p>\n

More e-toll news<\/h3>\n

E-tolling bill approved<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

SA should vote on e-tolls: law expert<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Toll road legislation was rushed through the National Assembly without an opportunity for public debate, Cosatu said<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":72554,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[5756,6525,7979],"class_list":["post-71916","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-technology","tag-cosatu","tag-e-toll","tag-quicknews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71916"}],"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=71916"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71916\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":71918,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/71916\/revisions\/71918"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/72554"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=71916"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=71916"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=71916"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}