Cosatu: Toll protests will be effective
2013-02-11 14:10
Pretoria - The series of "drive-slow protests"
against e-tolls will eventually ensure the system is scrapped, Cosatu Gauteng
provincial secretary Dumisani Dakile said on Monday.
He told protesters in Pretoria that despite the poor
attendance at the protest, a clear message of resistance would be sent to
government.
"This action is going to be very effective. Here, we
are not concerned about quantity, but quality," said Dakile.
"We are going to be driving very slowly. There is no
rush today in South Africa. The main target today is the N4, R21, and the N1
[highways]," he said.
Cosatu provincial chairperson Phutas Tseki said further
protests would be held around the province in future.
"We are saying to government, we the workers are not
happy. The development of the transformation agenda is going astray from what
we expected in 1994," he said.
"We had the view that we were going to have free
education [and] free movement on the roads. Government now wants to exclude
some sections of society from these roads."
Tseki said the labour federation hoped the transport
department would "rescind its decision and review what they are
saying".
The protest convoy, accompanied by different police
units, caused massive congestion of traffic in Pretoria as protesters blocked
busy junctions, such as the corner of Nelson Mandela Drive and Francis Baard
Street.
The protest gathered momentum before 10:00 as the
drive-slow fleet headed into the city centre from Marabastad, on the outskirts
of Pretoria.
The protesters got out of their vehicles at the transport
department offices, along Struben Street, and started singing and dancing.
Some were blowing vuvuzelas and waving placards.
Some of the placards read: "Stop highway robbery,
smash the e-tolls”.
Others read, "Reclaim our nation's roads, demolish
e-tolls, not people's houses".
The protest started at the old Putco bus depot in
Pretoria's Marabastad in the morning and would head onto the N1 towards
Johannesburg.
Last month, Dakile said the protest action would be
carried out in other provinces as well to ensure it became a "national
act".
On 25 January, the North Gauteng High Court in Pretoria
granted the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa) leave to take the
matter to the Supreme Court of Appeal in Bloemfontein.
Outa had applied to appeal a 13 December 2012, judgment,
which dismissed its bid to have the electronic tolling of Gauteng's major roads
scrapped.
- SAPA
