The South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) says e-tolls will end on Thursday, 11 April 2024.
According to a government gazette signed off by the Transport Minister Sindisiwe Chikunga, the Gauteng Free Improvement Project (GFIP) will no longer be toll routes.
“This essentially means that the 2008 gazette that declared the upgraded Gauteng freeway network to be tolled roads, has now been reversed, and the ill-conceived e-toll scheme will be a thing of the past,” said the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (OUTA).
E-tolls have been a major thorn in the side of Gauteng motorists, with many refusing to pay their bills, which brought the system to its knees.
“Bad laws need to be treated in a manner that sends government back to the drawing board, and one such avenue is civil disobedience. Fortunately, the general motoring public stood strong and collapsed the system,” said OUTA CEO Wayne Duvenage.
The end of the scheme was initially announced by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana in the 2022 medium-term budget policy statement (MTBPS), but issues over how the shutdown would be funded remained.
During the Gauteng budget earlier this month, MEC for finance Jacob Mamabolo said that the province approached financial institutions to borrow the necessary money to pay off the e-toll debt – while also taking on over R4 billion worth of maintenance backlogs.
National Treasury is taking over 70% of the debt owed on the e-tolls project, while Gauteng takes on the remaining 30% – which works out to about R13 billion.
Gauteng is on the hook for 30% of the debt owed on the e-toll project, amounting to almost R13 billion. The balance of 70% will be paid by National Treasury. It has been a long-standing question where the Gauteng portion would come from.
The government gazette can be found below: