Whenever I travel abroad (which is frequently), I tend to fly economy class. My logic is simple: I have a finite travel budget, so if I fly economy, I can have more frequent trips to more parts of the world. Case in point, an economy class round trip ticket to London can be had for as little as around R6000 as opposed to R60000 for a business class seat.
Now most reasonable people would nod in agreement with me – it is commonsensical after all – but for some unfathomable reason, too many people are not applying the same logic to toll roads.
But let’s start from the beginning. In the build up to the Fifa 2010 World Cup, the SA National Roads Agency Limited announced a major revamp of the freeways in the greater Gauteng area. This was codenamed the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (“GFIP”), and was intended to be complete in time for the World Cup.
Now as is the case with State Owned Companies here and around the world, deadlines went whizzing by and eventually, we gave up any notion of completing the thing in time for kickoff.
We welcomed the visiting hoards to a massive construction site and did some spin on how the country was moving onward and upward. The visitors didn’t really care because they were not driving anyway. We pulled off a kickass world cup and sent the visitors home smiling, and GFIP started construction again. Construction is still underway. (Yes, I know it’s been two years since the world cup.)
But while government is seemingly impervious to actually delivering on time, the people they borrow money from tend to be quite insistent that interest payments on loans start to flow at the designated start date for repayment. Sanral borrowed the money to build the roads and needs to start repaying those loans.
So, even though the freeways are not quite 100 percent ready, Sanral wanted users to start paying – at a minimum rate of around 40 cents per kilometre capped at around R550 per month for frequent users. Someone pulled out a calculator and worked out that this is around R6600 per year. Since then, howls of outrage have followed with Cosatu holding strikes to protest this new assault against the working class.
As a result, government capitulated slightly, with our Finance Minister announcing a cash injection of close to R6 billion to Sanral. This will result in the toll fees dropping from 40c per kilometre to 30c. Cosatu is still outraged and wants the tolls scrapped altogether.
Is it expensive?
I’ve just driven from Durban to Johannesburg through five toll plazas for a total of R174. By my calculation, that’s roughly 30c per kilometre (which thousands of us pay every holiday weekend without much complaint). The new Gauteng freeways are up to ten lanes wide in some cases making them cheaper per kilometre than the four lane wide N3.
Why should the road user pay? Why not a fuel levy?
I would counter that asking people who live in KZN to subsidise road construction in Gauteng through a fuel levy is unfair.
But here’s the more crucial point for me: the number of cars on Gauteng’s roads is growing by about 7 percent per year as I recall. In order for traffic levels to remain at their current congested levels, we would need to grow that road network by 7 percent per year.
Except, last time I looked, mother nature was not making any more land.
So roads are a scarce resource, and basic economics tells us that when there is a scarcity, the price should go up.
There are alternatives to using the toll roads. For example, one can travel from Johannesburg to Pretoria from Sandton via the R55 or the R101 at no charge. But it is economy class travel – the roads are congested, and it is stop-start driving.
So, to summarise: Sanral is a basket-case (as is nearly every other SOC), but that doesn’t change the fact that people using the new roads need to pay for them because someone has to, and it would be unfair to pass on the burden to the taxpayer at large. For those of us who cannot afford the toll roads, use the alternatives, and get up earlier, or move closer to work.
I do, however, fully support the call for full disclosure on the funding of the project. It’s not that I believe that Sanral is corrupt. I just think they did not have a clue how much they should be paying.