All the country needs is another toll road!

Here at FAnews Online we are often amused by how government and the press unwittingly push each other's agendas. Newspapers are in the business of selling sensationalism, while government employs a slightly longer-term strategy of spin as it attempts to w

Government knows that the public will oppose any idea that is likely to cost them more money. So they begin a clever cat and mouse game, releasing gradually softer versions of the same plan until the press' initial protest turns to support...

And the public unwittingly plays along. Reactions range from outrage when the story first breaks, to "not such a bad idea" by the time a more gentle policy becomes concrete a few years down the line. Believe it or not, the city-centre toll road concept was already doing the rounds in 1998!

The question, considering the significant number of national roads already run on a pay-for-use basis, is whether South Africa needs more toll roads.

More toll roads than we know what to do with

The South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRA) has its work cut out to maintain the country's 7, 200 kilometres of national road. With more than R30 billion in assets under management it is not surprising that maintenance costs are eating up more and more of the annual budget.

Toll roads are seen as a sensible strategy to lessen the burden on the national budget and viewed as a fairer system than straight taxation because they charge on a pay-for-use basis. The toll road concept is not unfamiliar to the general South African public. Our national routes linking Johannesburg to Cape Town and Johannesburg to Durban have been tolled for decades. More recently, ventures such as the N4 Platinum Toll Highway and the N3 Toll Project have come on stream.

To demonstrate how expensive road building is, consider that the projects mentioned above each cost in excess of R3 billion rand and covered paltry sections of road stretching between 300 and 400 kilometres in length.

Most city dwellers do not have to use these toll roads on a daily basis. They are most likely to incur this additional tax when embarking on long business trips or holidays. But when government starts to eye the high-use commuter road network around big cities, the public becomes nervous. Why should an already heavily taxed public foot an additional bill for their daily commute?

Already paying through our teeth for roads

The truth is South African motorists are already paying through their teeth for the privilege of using government roads. Every motor vehicle pays an annual license fee of between R175 and R250. And if this were not bad enough, the amount was recently increased by R30 per license renewal to ensure that taxpayers pay a second time for a licensing system already funded out of their tax contributions.

At the current Gauteng pump price of 711 cents per litre, the Road Accident Fund benefits by 41.5 cents and a massive 121 cents per litre is gobbled up by fuel tax. Despite the billions of rand channelled to government institutions in this way it seems the national road networks continue to decay.

With millions of additional road users, government should be hard pressed to spend all this 'transport' tax money on roads. It appears this money is not being applied to road infrastructure projects, but rather diverted to other sectors of public spending. Perhaps it is time for a serious investigation into the use of funds collected from motorists to ensure proper application of the funds before introducing additional cash generating quick fixes.

As investment guru Warren Buffet often claimed: owning a dominant newspaper in a small town is like running a toll concession on the only bridge entering that town. Warren Buffet knows about making money and he knows that toll roads are all about making money!

Editor's thoughts:
The United Kingdom recently took the toll road concept a step further when they introduced a congestion charge for all vehicles entering central London. Congestion charging was vehemently opposed by large sections of the population, but went ahead anyway. And it was not long before the charge was hiked. Do tolls and congestion charges reduce traffic volumes, or are they simply a clever technique to increase general levels of taxation? Send your comments to [email protected]