E-toll opponents are not the enemy!

“This absolutely preposterous to blame the many movements who’s mounting legitimate calls to halt e-tolling for the behavior of one of their own, when in fact it is the shocking behavior of meaningless public engagement processes, incorrect invoicing and intimidation of the public by SANRAL and their suppliers that is out of line with normal and expected business compliance and behavior,” said John Clarke, OUTA's spokesperson. 

Any negative consequences and outcomes relating to the e-toll debacle can only be put squarely at the feet of SANRAL and they have not right to push any blame on the Faith Based movements, COSATU, OUTA, The Biking Community, SALGA, Business organisations and Civil Society entities in general, who are all largely opposed to e-tolls.

The Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA) is also furthermore appalled at SANRAL’s claim that the person held responsible for the offensive hoax calls is not one of their employees. While strictly speaking, he may not have a direct contract with SANRAL, he in an employee of their system, be it through other suppliers or brokers who provide services to the e-tolling process. The person worked on their site and he was internally linked to their system, so trying to fob this off as someone else’s problem is ludicrous to say the least.

“SANRAL’s opponents will continue to keep focus on the legalities and lawfulness of the e-tolling decision (when it was made in 2007/8), along with the current maladministration and the offensive communications from the so-called SANRAL Violations Processing Centre" said Clarke. "OUTA continues to exist because South African society is in an ongoing systemic pathology of fear due to the erosion of the rule of law. We need to challenge rule by unjust law and reestablish the rule of just laws and fair policies that advance a culture of human rights, promote social cohesion and reweave the social fabric."

OUTA wishes to take this opportunity to also report that it is making good progress in collating and analysing the complaints received from thousands of angry citizens who are fed up with SANRAL’s behavior and these will be mediated to the Public Protector in due course.

"What is abundantly clear thus far is that allegations of dishonesty and the violation of the right of access to information is supported by the evidence" says Clarke. "We will keep the pressure on SANRAL to provide the public with the information rightfully required to know what is really happening behind the closed doors of the operations center in terms of e-tags registered, revenue collected, handling of complaints, etc. system efficiencies, etc."