No job losses anticipated after scrapping of e-tolls in Gauteng: Union

The Democratised Transport Logistics and Allied Workers Union says it does not anticipate any job losses due to government’s latest pronouncement on the future of e-tolls in Gauteng.

The union has welcomed the plan to scrap e-tolls, emphasising that it has engaged in several campaigns to call for the current e-tolling funding model to be abandoned.

The union has called on government and Sanral to ensure that all avenues are explored to avoid lay-offs among workers employed under the electronic toll system.

The union’s Vusi Ntshangase explains, “We do not [anticipate] any possible job losses as a result of this policy pronouncement, and if it happens that the government tends to move towards that direction of reducing staff, which might lead to job losses, as a union we are ready to defend and to protect. There should be no worker who loses employment, not in particularly now when we know that employment in South Africa is at a crisis point.”

Moving on from e-toll saga

Following the announcement on e-tolls in Gauteng by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana during his Mid-Term Budget, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA) said the province can now move on from the saga.

OUTA’s CEO Wayne Duvenage said, “What his message clearly signaled is that there’s no need to continue with e-tolling, as the funding mechanism for those Gauteng freeway bonds, which essentially means it is the end of e-tolls. We believe the Minister of Transport, as he has indicated, will be announcing this shortly. What that really means is that they got to declare these Gauteng roads as non-tolled roads, so that we can move on with this chapter once and for all. It’s taken them a long time but we have finally got there.”

Godongwana said Sanral’s debt is estimated at R47 billion.

The future of e-tolls in Gauteng: Wayne Duvenage: