New anti-e-toll campaign launched
"In this campaign we want to help individual citizens to hold the SA National Roads Agency Limited [Sanral] and the government to the rule of law and the Constitution," chairman Wayne Duvenage told reporters in Johannesburg.
He said the campaign was not about civil disobedience.
"In this campaign, we want to assist individual citizens who are prosecuted and who share Outa's belief that e-tolling is unlawful, in saying to Sanral and the government: if you want to govern us and if you want to toll us, you must do it lawfully."
Outa believed Sanral and the National Prosecuting Authority (NPA) were about to start prosecuting road users who had refused to pay e-tolls.
"Outa has requested an undertaking from Sanral and the NPA that prosecution should not be launched in view of the announcement of a review of e-tolling by Gauteng premier David Makhura, and this undertaking has not been given."
Makhura was expected to announce a panel to review e-tolls in the province on Thursday.
Duvenage said the campaign would need between R3 million and R4m for expected legal costs.
"Outa does not have funds to proceed with this campaign and once again, we turn to freeway users and request urgent donations to help us complete the battle for the rights of ordinary people and road users to be upheld."
He said if e-tolls were halted and no legal cost incurred, Outa would use the money to settle outstanding debts. It would transfer any surplus to other civil society initiatives striving to uphold the rule of law.
He said if the courts ruled that e-tolling was lawful, their campaign and their opposition to e-tolls would end.
He said Sanral and the government did not comply with the law when they introduced the system in Gauteng.
"Sanral did not conduct a proper public participation process as required by the Sanral Act before tolling can be introduced."
He said the public was not informed of what Sanral's plans were, how they would be affected, and what it would cost.
(File photo: gallo images)
