NATIONAL NEWS - Transport minister Fikile Mbalula says there are no easy solutions to the demand that e-tolling in Gauteng be scrapped because the debt incurred by the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) still has to be paid off.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Southern African Transport Conference on Monday, Mbalula spoke of the importance of a “win-win” solution for government and society. He asked “how do we meet each other half-way in this?” and touched on how government is managing and dealing with all the challenges it faces.
Mbalula says there are many things government is looking at but that, in the main, it is responding to the demand that the government must scrap e-tolls.
Challenges
“If we do away with e-tolls, not e-tolls in particular but the gantries because you still have e-tolls all over in terms of our national roads, there are challenges and how do we overcome those challenges?
“It’s a hard debate. It’s robust. Treasury is hard on the discussion because of what they are confronted with.”
Mbalula says the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) needs to have the capacity to borrow, but cannot borrow any more, which affects South Africa’s credit rating and how the rating agencies look at the country. He adds that these are issues government is interrogating in looking at a solution and that “the demand on the table is like a gun facing us that we must do away with the gantries”.
