Africa-Press – South-Africa. While Gauteng’s controversial e-tolls are shut down and won’t be coming back, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) is still trying to exorcise the lingering ghosts of the failed system.
The group announced a fresh legal challenge against national road agency Sanral and the Department of Transport to compel the state agencies to withdraw thousands of e-toll cases against motorists who rejected the system.
During the time that e-tolls were in operation, Sanral used many tactics to try to coerce motorists into buying into the system and paying their toll fees.
These included threats of credit blacklisting and being blocked from vehicle and driving licence renewals. These threats fell flat, and motorists continued their revolt against the system.
The roads agency eventually upped the ante by issuing thousands of summonses, launching legal cases against individuals and businesses alike.
One of the foundational benefits Outa offered South Africans who joined its cause against e-tolls was protection against Sanral’s legal challenges.
Accepting a mandate from donors, Outa would take on the case and launch a defence on behalf of the targeted motorists.
The group noted that Sanral had instituted legal action against 2,028 individuals and businesses over unpaid e-toll debt, which the civil action group defended against.
As the court was flooded with thousands of cases, Outa and Sanral began preparing a ‘test case’, in the hopes of setting a precedent that could be applied to all other cases.
However, in 2019, Sanral stopped issuing summonses altogether as it became evident that the system had collapsed, and the provincial and national governments went into damage control mode.
The e-toll system eventually collapsed completely, with the government officially ending the ill-advised scheme in 2024.
On the legal front, the test case was never heard, and nothing came of the thousands of other cases in the system.
Outa now argues that Sanral effectively abandoned the cases, as it has taken no further steps on these cases, and it is now seeking legal finality on the matters.
Fight over costs
According to Outa head, Wayne Duvenage, the group approached both Sanral and the Department of Transport to get finality on the matter, but was met with silence.
This prompted the organisation to head to court to force the issue. The main point of contention is costs.
Duvenage noted that simply abandoning the cases isn’t enough to end the matter, because each of the cases Outa came to defend carried a cost.
Until these cases are formally withdrawn by the issuer, they remain in the system and open, with no way for Outa to recover those costs.
The group has now filed legal action against Sanral and three ministers, asking the high court to declare that roads agency has abandoned the collection of the outstanding e-toll debts.
This will remove these matters from court. If Outa wins, Sanral’s claims against the 2,028 e-toll defendants will fall away.
Outa is also requesting the court to make an order to force Sanral to pay Oouta’s legal costs in the cases.
The respondents are Sanral, the ministers of Transport and Finance, the minister and director-general of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment, and the commissioner of SARS.
According to Outa, Sanral has indicated that it intends to oppose its application, but it has received no other responses.
BusinessTech asked Sanral and the Department of Transport for comment on the matter but did not receive a response by the time of publication. Comment will be added once received.
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