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Dear SANRAL, please would you just stop a moment and look at the FACTS before you continue flogging a dead horse.
1) You have some 2 900 000 accounts outstanding. Many, if not most, are from the 'can't pays' - the hundreds of thousands of old Golfs, Tazzes and Mazdas streaming up from the South of Jhb. These guys are mostly on the breadline, only just managing to meet ever-rising food and other costs. You are NEVER EVER going to reclaim money back from them. Fact.
2) Then there are the 'won't pays' - the people who actually pay the tax to run this country (approx. 3.5 million in total). While the 'won't pays' fully understand the need to maintain and also build new roads, they strenuously object to having most of the money paid in e-tolls going off to Kapsch in Austria. To finance a deal that is 100% certain to have been crooked in the first place as it was done with the above company and BAE Aerospace that were PROVEN overseas to have paid massive bribes (to senior ANC officials, including Zuma), in the notorious Armsgate deal. So it's the first real case of massive, nationally-supported civil disobedience against the ANC - a bit ironic in the light of it having been a big weapon in the 'struggle'. Like, a taste of your own medicine, hey?
3) Before OUTA, there is no doubt that after trying the 'carrot' approach with massive discounts (which didn't work) you, SANRAL, were planning to try the 'stick' approach - mass prosecution. Thinking you could use more taxpayer funds to wear down opposition in court. Well, now, there's a well-funded opposition whose main intention is to challenge the whole legality of e-tolling. And you KNOW you aren't going to win that case.
So, SANRAL, give it up now and sell those gantries for scrap. Only 14% of SANRAL's budget comes from tolls anyway - the rest from the fiscus. Let Gordhan increase the petrol levy by 50c or so - it goes up and down by rands at a time anyway - ringfence that cash so corrupt ANC officials can't steal it - and BINGO! Problem solved. Give up now and admit defeat. Because the people, this time, have spoken. And we ARE going to win.
