A government can hide corruption by restricting the freedom of access to information by the press and the public.
The South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), a company wholly owned by government and reporting to the Minister of Transport, upgraded the roads in Gauteng and appointed Electronic Toll Collection as the toll operator.
SANRAL initially told the public the e-toll tender was R6.2 billion. But it later emerged this figure appeared to be escalating and figures of R9bn, R15bn and even R30bn to operate the system were surmised.
SANRAL is refusing to give the public access to information relating to the R30 billion tender despite the matter being taken to court by public organisations. The court review is scheduled for the 26 to 29 November.
SANRAL has spent a large amount of money advertising the registration process for e-Tolls but has spent very little on informing the public about where and when the public consultative processes would take place. The pubic consultations in short are a sham and are too little too late.
Most people have no objection to paying for the upgrade to Gauteng roads. The method of collecting the money via e-Tolling is too expensive and the fuel levy should rather be used.
As a member of the public I would like to see the agreement with the Electronic Tolling Collection company made public.
SANRAL committed on national television to make complete disclosure of the contract to COSATU and the DA. SANRAL then handed over some of the contracts to COSATU only and had blanked out much of the information.
Members of the public cannot make informed decisions around the fairness of e-Tolling as SANRAL has not been transparent and has not communicated all relevant information.
We are a democratic country and SANRAL needs to be transparent and accountable to us all.
We close our petition on Thursday 15th for SANRAL to publically make available the contract with ETC.
Make your opinion heard at : http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Freedom_of_access_to_information/
Send your objection to: mphahlet@dot.gov.za
http://www.iol.co.za/news/special-features/public-will-never-know-e-toll-facts-1.1402788#.UIo3dG_ql8E
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