This was the year which signalled a bittersweet ending to a long running battle between civil society organisations and government over the introduction of e-tolls in December 2013.
It is, however, credit to a civil society formation – the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), which was formed in 2012 – that led to civil disobedience against e-tolls.
It appears the Gauteng ANC’s fierce opposition to the e-tolling system added impetus to the anti-tolls movement.
In October, when newly appointed Gauteng premier Panyaza Lesufi announced e-tolls would be scrapped, one man who felt a measure of relief was Outa CEO Wayne Duvenhage. He regards the scrapping of the e-tolls a victory for motorists.
“It was wrong for motorists to pay for e-tolls. It was an act of robbing the people. Hence, we decided to take this fight directly to Sanral. We had a firm belief that this was a winnable case.
“Despite it having taken us years to win, it was a relief to us. We managed to fight tooth and nail for justice for our people,” says Duvenhage.
He observes also that the battle that was partly fought in the court of law was an expensive exercise too.“It was going to be an expensive exercise for our people to pay for, especially if one looks at the current challenges our economy is faced with. You should know that there were not a lot of motorists who were paying for e-tolls, and Sanral came up with threats that they will get those who were not paying to have their driving licences withheld and they also threatened people with criminal records.
“Those who paid their e-toll fees must go and ask their cash back from Sanral. We can’t fight for those who paid for e-tolls. We took on the fight for the people who didn’t want to pay. For those who paid, unfortunately they did that through their conscience, and they should fight their own battle to get their money back,” he says.
Duvenhage says Sanral spent R2,5-billion on gantries and building Sanral collection centres. “Gantries were built by an international company based in Australia, and what we are saying is that it was an irrational decision and an irregular one.
“As Outa, we spent R8-million in courts in 2012 and 2013. After that we spent another R12-million, and it really cost us an arm and a leg to fight for our people. It has been a worthy fight, and this showed how the civil society movement had taken the fight to government. Despite being told that we were fighting a losing battle, we never gave up.”
The fight is, however, not yet over. He says Outa will now be going after Sanral to repay the money they spent in court.
“We are now beyond e-tolls, and we are now focusing on other cases involving people like Dudu Myeni, Mosebenzi Zwane, Brian Molefe, Matshela Koko among others. We are corruption busters, and we have 40 to 45 projects that we are dealing with … and we are not going to give up,” he says.
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