Sanral disputes DA’s claim of model failure
The failure of the e-Toll model applied in Portugal cannot be compared to South Africa’s model.
Vusi Mona, spokesperson for the South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) says this, because the two have significantly different back-office operations, which in the case of Portugal were mainly responsible for poor enforcement and escalation in maintenance costs.
According to Mona, the Democratic Alliance threw Portugal into the comparison mix for cheap political point scoring without understanding the nuances of the Portuguese experience.
“In South Africa we have the Electronic Tolling Collection (ETC) company, which was solely set up to manage tolling on behalf of Sanral; they have sophisticated back-office operations and assume a central role compared to the Portuguese system,” says Mona.
As a consequence of the inefficiencies in the Portuguese system’s back-office operations, enforcement suffered and with it the operators’ inability to efficiently collect fees.
According to Mona, it has taken Portugal at least three years to get their back office system in order.
“There is a big backlog of violations to be processed, and that didn’t help to create the idea that if you don’t pay you will suffer the consequences.”
He says that in South Africa they put in place cross-functional teams to model and develop business processes, mapping the entire value chain.
“This systems integration and alignment with our enforcement strategy, as well as our unique ability for on-the-road enforcement, puts us on a different league compared to Portugal,” says Mona.
Sanral has been running its systems in a live environment even though e-Tolling has not officially commenced. For this reason, the roads agency argues that when e-Tolling officially commences, there will be no major operational differences, though there could be minor hiccups as expected with any new system.
“While Sanral welcomes any caution from the DA’s Ian Ollis about the Portugal experience, reaching the conclusion that e-Tolling in Gauteng will go the route of Portugal is preposterous, especially when one has not been exposed to the two different systems used in both countries,” says Mona.
