The Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry is playing hardball with Sanral over the proposed Winelands toll project.
|||Cape Town - “Give us an updated impact assessment or scrap the tolls.” That was the message to the South African National Road Agency (Sanral) from the Cape Chamber of Commerce and Industry.
Peter Hugo, chairperson of the chamber’s transport portfolio committee, said on Wednesday that the N1/N2 Winelands toll project “simply makes no sense”.
He said Sanral was trying to justify the need for the tolls with the promise of 5 000 jobs and an outdated socio-economic study.
The study by UCT’s Graduate School of Business (GSB) in 2008 indicated that price hikes would be minimal on fruit and other goods transported along the roads. The highest potential increase on goods was 0.31 percent.
However, public transport commuters would be hit the hardest.
The report said commuters travelling into the city from Kraaifontein by taxi could pay up to R1 100 more for their journey a year if Sanral went ahead with the project.
A taxi journey between Khayelitsha and Somerset West would cost commuters an extra R4.16 per trip, while commuters travelling between Grabouw and Somerset West would have to fork out an extra R6.24. Those travelling between Grabouw and Hermanus would pay R8.23 more.
The study said that any cost increase as a result of the proposed tolls would be passed directly on to commuters and that bus and taxi owners would not bear any cost increases. Generally, the report noted that the overall benefits of the project would be greater than the costs.
But Hugo said on Wednesday: “(Sanral) must present us with an updated needs and desirability study, and a business plan, before we’ll consider tolls. But for now, we’ll do anything to stop it from going ahead.”
Finance, Economic Development and Tourism MEC Alan Winde said the tolls were “far from being economically viable”.
He said the GSB study had been conducted prior to the global financial crisis, which meant poor commuters would have to pay even higher fees should the tolls go ahead.
“The entire project has to be scrapped,” Winde said.
“It will hit the poor people on the Cape Flats, and the agriculture band surrounding them, the hardest.”
Winde said the Cape’s agriculture and small business industries were struggling and the tolls would exacerbate an already difficult situation.
“The economy needs certainty. Proposed tolls is not giving investors certainty in our region,” he said.
“We are saying no to this. We will maintain our own roads. But we don’t want any tolls in the Western Cape.”
Political parties are expected to debate the proposed tolling of the N1, N2 and R300 in the legislature on Thursday.
Earlier this month, the DA, ANC and Cosatu announced that they opposed the tolls.
Winde said that if all political parties opposed the tolls in the legislature today, it would send a strong message to Sanral that “no one in the Western Cape wants it”.
Sanral spokesman Vusi Mona said reports that the proposed tolls were anti-poor were misleading.
“The upgrade of the N1/N2 Winelands route will be of great benefit to all communities in the region and will not impact negatively on poorer communities,” he said.
The agency was planning a R10-billion toll project on the N1 and N2, involving 175km. This would include a 105km stretch on the N1 between the Old Oak Interchange and Sandhills, and a 70km section of the N2, from west of Swartklip to Bot River. - Cape Argus