Minister confirms Outa’s e-tag count

Last week, the minister of transport Ms Dipuo Peters said that the average number of e-tags fitted to vehicles making use of the Gauteng freeways was “between 23 and 28.6 percent as at February 1”.

Her response was in relation to questions asked in Parliament.

This information corresponds with the e-tag count the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) did in early February, which found that 71 percent of vehicles passing under the gantries did not have e-tags fitted.

Minister Peters also gave information which exposed Sanral chief executive officer (CEO) Mr Nazir Alli’s recent claims of “over 1 million registered users” as grossly exaggerated.

Minister Peters said that at the end of January there were 912 049 e-tags issued but only 51 percent of that number, some 468 388, were fitted onto private freeway users and the balance went government and corporate vehicles.

“The statement by Minister Peters confirms Outa’s findings and also indicates why the Central Operations Centre at Midrand is being overwhelmed with so-called teething problems,” said Mr John Clarke, the spokesperson for Outa.

“Since the large majority of vehicles passing under the gantries are not e-tag registered, the operations centre staff have to use video evidence and the eNatis database to identify vehicles and bill them,” he added.

Mr Clarke also said that data is unreliable and the manual process of reading vehicle licence plates is time consuming and prone to error, “it explains the billing fiasco”.

Outa chairperson, Mr Wayne Duvenage, said there is a big difference between errors and deliberate deception.

“I have written to Minister Peters to urge her to summons Sanral CEO Nazir Alli to her office to explain how he could possibly claim that the revenue targets have been exceeded by R100-million per month,” Mr Duvenage said.

He added that Minister Peters now knew that Outa’s research was accurate and can be relied upon. “When she puts him on the carpet she might also question why he is campaigning so hard to extend e-tolling to other provinces instead of sorting out the fiasco that is Sanral. She needs to hold him and the Sanral board accountable for taking such massive risks with public money. Beyond party political interests, Minister Peters must be conscious of what the judgement of history will say,” said Mr Duvenage.