Unaudited cash flows a sign of stable investment – Sanral

The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) thanked motorists who have paid for making use of Gauteng’s e-roads.

According to the entity, cash flow collected in the three months since the commencement of open road tolling in December was better than forecasted.

In a statement released last week, Sanral said an amount of R250.8-million was received as of February 28.

The number of vehicles registered to make use of the Gauteng e-roads has also exceeded expectations.

According the latest information released, 1 242 317 vehicles were registered at the end of February.

Since toll commencement, approximately 2.5-million vehicles were identified on the Gauteng network.

Revenue of R953-million has been recorded, however Sanral’s chief financial officer Ms Inge Mulder said the revenue represents the nominal value of transactions, excluding VAT.

The values recorded have not been adjusted in terms of International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS), which requires the amount to be fair valued and impaired, if applicable.

The values are therefore subject to change during the financial year-end process and will still be reviewed by the Auditor General for accuracy and completeness.

No provision for bad debt has been included.

The information was shared with the investment community during Sanral’s road show, which was held in Johannesburg and Cape Town ahead of the bond sale planned for April 2.

The same figures were also shared with the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Transport, where Sanral clarified that it had registered and non-registered users.

“We made Parliament understand that there were no major issues with registered users and that of the 1.2-million registered users, 964 886 or 77 percent of users, had purchased an e-tag, with the remaining 277 431 or 23 percent opting for the Vehicle Licence Number (VLN) plate registration.

“We also conceded to Parliament that we do have issues with unregistered users. The majority of queries included cloned number plates and vehicles without number plates, which we are attending to as a matter of priority. This is being done in conjunction with the Department of Transport,” said Mr Nazir Alli, the chief executive officer of Sanral.

The investor road show coincided with the ruling for Sanral by the Western Cape High Court, which dismissed the Democratic Alliances’ challenge of the constitutionality of the e-tolling.

“We reject the insinuations made by our opponents that these figures are inaccurate. We have no reason to manipulate these figures because we are audited by the Auditor General and that is good enough for investors because they really want to know if the cash flows generated by the project will yield a good return on their investment,” said Mr Alli.

The bond auction is set to commence on April 2 and Sanral said it was confident the market will react positively to the issuance following the outcome of the various courts for Sanral, as well as the progress on payments received from road users.

The roads agency also expects Moody’s Corporation to improve the rating it gave Sanral recently, following the news, and this will further boost investor confidence in the bond market.

“The rating agency was concerned with the uncertainty around the commencement date and reserved their opinion on the future rating. We are now back to where we were two years ago and we hope that based on these numbers the rating will change,” said Ms Mulder.

However, she pointed out that it was important for people to understand that tolling was not only about collecting money to maintain the roads and service debt.

“It is also about optimising road-based transport,” said Ms Mulder.

The current debt is R39.8-billion as issued under the Domestic Medium Term Note programme.