Benefits of e-toll roads outweigh criticism, Sanral tells review panel

The major benefits that world-class road infrastructure brings to the Gauteng economy were underlined by Sanral when it presented its final submissions to the Gauteng e-toll Review Panel today.

The panel, set up by Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, to review the impact of e-tolling, met with Sanral for a fourth day of presentations, questions and answers. Earlier, Transport Minister, Dipuo Peters, the acting Director of Transport, Mawethu Vilana and Sanral CEO, Nazir Alli, made detailed presentations to the panel on the background to the construction of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) and the decision to fund it through open-road tolling.

Economist, Dr Roelof Botha, told the panel the upgrades to the GFIP could not have been made without the funding through e-tolling.

Referring to the GFIP as "an engineering masterpiece without parallel on the continent in Africa", Botha said its value should be measured against the benefits it brought to the country's economy and improvements to the quality of life of residents.

This is most evident in the savings made by road users in time spent in traffic, higher productivity, a reduced impact on the environment and lower costs in the transportation of good and services.

The user-pay model for infrastructure such as roads enables Government to have more funds available for social services, education, health services and pensions, Botha said. "None of this would have been possible without e-tolls. There simply is no other money available."

The second presenter - Keith Lockwood, independent economist - answered questions on the quintiles as posed by the panel during its previous session. Lockwood stated lower quintile households spend relatively little on fuel and vehicle ownership, and are most likely to make use of public transport. Of course, public transport is exempt from paying tolls. Should a fuel levy be chosen as the funding model for GFIP, there will be a significantly greater impact on lower income earners than with e-tolls.

"A fuel levy is a hidden tax and there is an erroneous belief that there is no cost to the consumers while it is obviously not so," said Lockwood.

He concluded that the submissions received by the panel before Sanral stated its case, have highlighted this. For example, there are those complaining about paying e-tolls, such as a small business owner needing to buy stock for his spaza shop who then elects to use the alternative route which takes him longer, costs more fuel and increases wear and tear on cars.

In response to questions raised by the panel, Alli said the contribution of road infrastructure to the betterment of society should not be underestimated. Roads provide people access to economic opportunities that, in turn, lead to sustainable economic growth. Alli also again clarified the calculations in regards to the increase in fuel levy required to maintain, improve and sustain the national road network. To only address the network sustaining maintenance needs of R65.8 billion per annum will require an additional R1per litre of fuel. This will increase the fuel levy to R3.17 per litre as it currently stands at R2.17.

Alli said to address the remainder of the strengthening - five years - and regravelling - 10 years - not allocated to the sustaining maintenance as well as the gravel road surfacing backlog will require a further R0.48 per litre of fuel - raising the average fuel levy to R3.65 per litre.

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