{"id":89972,"date":"2025-09-17T18:06:55","date_gmt":"2025-09-17T18:06:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga"},"modified":"2025-09-17T18:13:37","modified_gmt":"2025-09-17T18:13:37","slug":"one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga","title":{"rendered":"One final twist for South Africa\u2019s e-toll saga"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. <\/strong><\/span>While Gauteng\u2019s controversial e-tolls are shut down and won\u2019t be coming back, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) is still trying to exorcise the lingering ghosts of the failed system.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The roads agency eventually upped the ante by issuing thousands of summonses, launching legal cases against individuals and businesses alike.<\/p>\n

One of the foundational benefits Outa offered South Africans who joined its cause against e-tolls was protection against Sanral\u2019s legal challenges.<\/p>\n

Accepting a mandate from donors, Outa would take on the case and launch a defence on behalf of the targeted motorists.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

As the court was flooded with thousands of cases, Outa and Sanral began preparing a \u2018test case\u2019, in the hopes of setting a precedent that could be applied to all other cases.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

The e-toll system eventually collapsed completely, with the government officially ending the ill-advised scheme in 2024.<\/p>\n

On the legal front, the test case was never heard, and nothing came of the thousands of other cases in the system.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

Fight over costs<\/b><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This prompted the organisation to head to court to force the issue. The main point of contention is costs.<\/p>\n

Duvenage noted that simply abandoning the cases isn\u2019t enough to end the matter, because each of the cases Outa came to defend carried a cost.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

This will remove these matters from court. If Outa wins, Sanral\u2019s claims against the 2,028 e-toll defendants will fall away.<\/p>\n

Outa is also requesting the court to make an order to force Sanral to pay Oouta\u2019s legal costs in the cases.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

According to Outa, Sanral has indicated that it intends to oppose its application, but it has received no other responses.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About South-Africa<\/span> Follow Africa-Press<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – South-Africa. While Gauteng\u2019s controversial e-tolls are shut down and won\u2019t 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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":89970,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,12],"tags":[275],"class_list":["post-89972","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-policy","tag-south-africa-2"],"yoast_head":"\nOne final twist for South Africa\u2019s e-toll saga - South Africa<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"While Gauteng\u2019s controversial e-tolls are shut down and won\u2019t be coming back, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"One final twist for South Africa\u2019s e-toll saga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"While Gauteng\u2019s controversial e-tolls are shut down and won\u2019t be coming back, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"South Africa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-09-17T18:06:55+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2025-09-17T18:13:37+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/09\/sm_1758120179.878966.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"674\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"3 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"One final twist for South Africa\u2019s e-toll saga\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-09-17T18:06:55+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2025-09-17T18:13:37+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga\"},\"wordCount\":600,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/sites\/31\/2025\/09\/sm_1758120179.878966.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"South-Africa\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"policy\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/south-africa\/all-news\/one-final-twist-for-south-africas-e-toll-saga\",\"name\":\"One final twist for South Africa\u2019s e-toll saga - 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