Benefits of e-toll roads outweigh criticism, SANRAL tells review panel
Pretoria, 19 November 2014 - The major benefits that world-class road infrastructure brings to the Gauteng economy was underlined by SANRAL when it presented its final submissions to the Gauteng Review Panel today.
The panel set up by Gauteng Premier, David Makhura, to review the impact of e-tolling met with SANRAL for a fourth day of presentations, questions and answers. Earlier, Transport Minister, Dipuo Peters, the acting Director of Transport, Mawethu Vilana and SANRAL CEO, Nazir Alli made detailed presentations to the panel on the background to the construction of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) and the decision to fund it through open-road tolling.
Economist Dr Roelof Botha told the panel that the upgrades to the GFIP could not have been made without the funding through e-tolling.
Referring to the GFIP as "an engineering masterpiece without parallel on the continent in Africa," Botha said its value should be measured against the benefits it brought to the country's economy and improvements to the quality of life of residents.
This is most evident in the savings made by road users in time spent in traffic, higher productivity, a reduced impact on the environment and lower costs in the transportation of good and services.