The Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has launched a legal bid to stop the collection of unpaid e-toll debt, following the official scrapping of the controversial Gauteng e-toll system in April 2024.
On August 20, the civic action group filed papers in the Pretoria High Court against the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) and three government ministers, seeking a declaration that Sanral has effectively abandoned its e-toll debt claims. No court date has been set yet.
The case involves Outa and 2,028 individuals and businesses that have faced e-toll debt claims totalling R265m. The biggest claim against a business is R13.5m, and R814,978 against an individual.
Respondents include Sanral, the ministers of transport, finance, and forestry, fisheries and environment, as well as the SA Revenue Service (SARS). Sanral has indicated it will oppose the application.
Outa’s legal team argues that Sanral abandoned the debt collection process after its board resolved in March 2019 to suspend e-toll debt recovery efforts. Since then, no further legal action has been taken against motorists.
“The toll declarations were clearly withdrawn after government decided that e-toll debt would be funded directly from the national and provincial fiscus,” said Outa’s advocate, Stefanie Fick.
Finance minister Enoch Godongwana confirmed in October 2022 that the R47bn debt from the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) would be split between the Treasury (70%) and the Gauteng provincial government (30%). On March 28 2024, the official notice to end e-tolls was gazetted, with effect from April 11 2024.
E-Tolls were introduced in 2013 to finance the GFIP, but motorists, labour unions and civil groups such as Cosatu, the AA and Outa opposed the system from the start. Most motorists refused to pay their e-toll bills.
In 2015, Outa launched its E-Toll Defence Umbrella to protect those facing legal action for unpaid e-toll fees.
While the government has begun making payments towards the e-toll debt, it was not clear whether motorists who owed historical e-toll debt were still obligated to pay, nor what the enforcement mechanisms would be.
Outa now wants the court to confirm the debt claims are abandoned, recover legal costs for motorists and bring finality to the matter.
“Sanral’s failure to withdraw the actions and tender the costs is unfair and prejudicial to Outa and the defendants who are entitled to have certainty and obtain finality in the actions, and are entitled to payment of the legal costs incurred in defending the actions,” said Fick.
At the time of publication, Sanral had not responded to requests for comment.
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