Outa to facilitate talks

Prior to the start of tolling, OUTA spent months in a adversarial battle through the courts during which the Surpreme Court set aside Outa’s challenge on a technicality.

While the organisation fought the judgement, and the charging of Gauteng motorists to use the province’s highways, they have not given up their fight to have tolls set aside.

In Outa’s opinion, the judgment handed down on December 13, 2012, was fundamentally flawed and therefore sought to appeal this outcome.

Outa has contracted John GI Clarke, a consultant social worker’s services to assist in finding a constructive way forward with respect to e-toll.

In a letter from Clarke to the deputy director of public protector, Kevin Sifiso Malunga, Clarke notes that ” the courts did not rule on the unlawfulness and irrationality arguments posed by Outa, which it said will need to be addressed if and when these matters are raised in a defensive challenge by a person summoned for non-payment of e-tolls.

“Outa is not asking the public protector to enter into that dispute, per se, but to help open channels of communication in the wake of the bitter adversarial battle that e-tolling has become.”

Clarke adds: “From Outa’s perspective the situation has the makings of a fiasco if Sanral is not held accountable for their handling the problems that are being experienced by road users since e-tolling was introduced.”

Clarke has been asked, by Outa, to facilitate a meeting between the various stakeholders who oppose the e-toll decision, Sanral, the Department of Transport and Treasury in an alternative dispute resolution process, and try and generate light rather than heat.

He further claims on several occasions Outa spokesman Wayne Duvenhage and himself have found themselves waiting in vain for Sanral to turn up to live radio talk shows and TV current affairs programmes during which e-tolls were to be debated.

“Producers are naturally disinclined to feature only one side of a highly controversial issue, and in some instances the programmes have been cancelled. The practical effect of their no-show … is to escalate public bitterness, resentment and anger toward Sanral.”

He adds that Sanral is accountable to road users and cannot fail to heed what the road user, in a “user-pay” system, think and feel about their services.

It is therefore Outa’s aim to encourage Sanral to engage in transparent and honest manner with their customers.

Clarke states the extent of problems Sanral is having with e-tolling cannot be rationalised and dismissed as teething problems and administrative bottlenecks, which only require patience from the customers and on-the-job learning by the employees of the service provider.

“The reason Outa wants the the Public Protector to intervene is to bring the stakeholders together, so that they can comfort Sanral in a responsible constructive manner and to hear what Sanral wishes to say to their critics in a face-to-face experience,” concludes Clarke.