Seeing as they have contractual obligations, you can be sure they’ll find some or other way to tax it out of us…
Alas, they still won the election quite comfortably, and for the next five years will no doubt become even more rapaciously greedy. I think the more farsighted ones among them can see the writing on the wall, and for them that is not a sign to improve their governance, but simply a sign that they had better steal as much as possible while they still can.
Not that I complain too much about it. I am employed in a job I rather like, largely because of government ineptitude: if they hadn’t comprehensively fubar-ed the education system, I likely would never have gotten a job as teacher.
Not to prod a flamewar or anything, but this saga does read a lot like an Ayn Rand novel: The productive in society refusing to be legislated into being effectively burgled, to support unsustainable business models pushed on them by corrupt politicians.
Only in this case the “productive” are not just the extremely rich, but everyone including the extremely poor (if only indirectly).
Her characters were always either perfect or totally evil (except Eddie Willers)…underlying theme though still totally topical today if your watch what is potting around the world.
A whole new department would be started, we have 11 languages after all. A ministerial commission would have to sit for about 3 months just to think up a name. There will be a scandal over the renting of the building to be used, and of course the cars. (all with blue lights and bodyguards). Maybe I must apply, no wait, I don’t have the right family connection.
ASA: Sanral e-toll ads mislead SA public. SANRAL keeps shooting itself in its various and several mouth-borne feet. Their attempts to inspire public confidence and compliance are starting to look as though they were taken from a script for a slapstick comedy.
Gauteng to ‘review’ e-tolling. History strongly suggests that this review process has a whole lot more to do with the ANC’s huge loss of support in Gauteng and the upcoming municipal elections than any genuine desire to find a win-win solution to this e-tolling fiasco.
SANRAL is currently offering sizeable discounts on unpaid tolls until the end of this month through a huge SMS campaign. It should come as no surprise that there’s a pair of underhanded catches to this offer. First, to qualify for the discount, you have to register and purchase an e-tag, which means signing away an important chunk of your ordinary consumer rights. Second, you still have to pay the full outstanding amount, and the ‘discount’ is then credited to your account for future tolls.
And radio, heard an ad about it on highveld this morning, all extolling the awesomeness of getting an “extended” discount and eToll credits. However the ad wasn’t nearly as clear about how exactly this works as you are.
If such a move is made I approve, but not totally.
(a) The argument that Gauteng is being subsidized by the rest of the country is BS, even with a secondary nationwide levy we will still be subsidizing everyone else. If you take into account the fact that levies feed the social grant system, Gauteng’s levy is to a significant degree feeding the country.
(b) The ANC have learned a valuable political lesson, and hopefully will be more hesitant to steamroller quite as easily next time.
(c) Other provinces where eTolls are being considered will take some serious note, and will hopefully face massive political pressure from the ANC themselves to take the blue pill.
Even given all that, at the end of the day a secondary nationwide levy is incorrect, of course: The govt is spending road tax on social grants. A fact seemingly, stunningly, invisible to them as being the root cause of the whole situation. However given our political climate I sadly don’t see that changing any time soon. The EFF would have a field day.
I don’t know what everybody wanted but what I want is the tax and the fuel levies I already pay, to be responsibly applied to what it is intended for and not for instance, for luxury villages in Kwazulu Natal.
Furthermore, I live in Cape Town and we need some attention to some roads down here as well, so paying a fuel levy with the specific purpose of up keeping Gauteng roads sucks.
