Descripción de las perspectivas según el CMI

As the official opposition in South Africa, the Democratic Alliance (DA) has the responsibility of questioning the decisions that the government makes. Arguably, there is no single issue in South African politics (apart from the Nkandla scandal, perhaps) that has received as much attention in the media as the e-Tolling scheme in the years 2011, 2012 and 2013.

The most obvious manifestation of the DA using the e-Toll scheme as a point of departure in its election campaigning has been the use of billboards next to the highways that proclaim slogans such as “E-tolls, proudly brought to you by the ANC” as can be seen in Figure 5.3. Apart from the billboards, the DA also highlighted the problems caused by the e-Tolling system for the people of Gauteng.

In addition to the billboards, the DA have made the e-Toll problem very clear in the rest of their election campaign material. Further examples of this can be found in press releases on the DA website, which seeks to illuminate the amount of money spent on “propaganda” by

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SANRAL in their defence of the system (DA Website, 2013).

On a more practical level, the DA have also pledged large amounts of money to the cause opposing e-Tolls. In June 2013, the DA donated R1 million to OUTA in order to support its court bid which, at the time, was in the process of returning to the Supreme Court of Appeal (SAPA, 2013).

In addition to its election campaigning, the Democratic Alliance has also been active in criticising the ANC and the e-Tolling system in parliament. In 2012, the DA’s Jack Bloom submitted a request to the Public Protector’s office asking for full disclosure of all 33 sub- contractors possibly involved in the fee collection process on the GFIP’s highways. In a statement by Mr Bloom at the time of the probe being announced by the Public Protector, he placed emphasis on the fact that “we need to know if any high-level politician was unjustly enriched in this process” and that “it is vitally important that the truth is revealed, with no cover-ups” (Bloom, 2012a).

Figure 5.3: DA billboard

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The motivation for the call for investigation stems from the fact that the DA, under the guidance of Bloom, has alleged that the parent company of the Electronic Toll Company (ETC), KAPSCH,, has unsavoury links with the South African arms deal. In a statement on the DA’s website, Bloom stated that

Swedish KAPSCH TrafficCom holds 40% of ETC while Austrian principal KAPSCH has the remaining 25%. The Swedish Arm was previously part of Swedish manufacturing company SAAB Aerospace and later became part of KAPSCH AG (Bloom, 2012).34

SAAB Aerospace was involved in a scandal surrounding the controversial South African arms deal in the early 2000s. It has been claimed that SAAB Aerospace set up companies specifically for the purpose of paying bribes to South African politicians.

The concern of both Bloom and the DA is that these companies have, once again, embarked on similar campaigns, this time in the tender process for the GFIP and the e-Tolling system. The Public Protector announced shortly after the application by Bloom that her office would determine whether any other institutions were investigating similar allegations and would co- ordinate a response based on that (Clarke, 2012).

The money donated to OUTA is not the only way in which the DA has legally been fighting against e-Tolls as, in 2014, the DA brought an application to the Constitutional Court to have the Transport and Related Matters Amendment Bill declared unconstitutional. This was for reasons similar to those outlined by OUTA in their “Rule of Law” campaign: that the public consultation period was not adequate, that the key role players did not adequately research other financing alternatives or that they had not practised due diligence when signing off on a system that would cost so much money to operate. The court dismissed the application on the grounds that “it was not in the interest of justice for the Constitutional Court to hear the matter at this stage” (SAPA, 2014).35

The argument for the case being thrown out of the Constitutional Court was due to the amount of time that the e-Toll saga had already taken up in South African courts. The

34 _{http://www.polity.org.za/article/da-statement-by-jack-bloom-democratic-alliance-caucus-leader-on-the-}

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Constitutional Court did not feel that the DA was coming forward with radically different information to what had been brought to court earlier by both the DA and OUTA. This followed a similar application being dismissed in the Western Cape High Court three months earlier (SAPA, 2014).36

As is often the case in party politics, it is impossible to know for certain whether the DA embarked on this court bid with the genuine goal of having the e-Toll system challenged and removed from the GFIP. It could also be that it was a tactical ploy by the Democratic Alliance that would make it seem strong in standing up to government, but with no real hope of winning the court case.

The DA has made a concerted effort to decrease the support of the ANC and, in turn, boost its own electoral support. The conclusion of this chapter will discuss the wider-ranging ramifications of e-Tolling for the 2014 general elections. Another source of opposition to the e-Tolling system has come from an ally of the ANC, the Congress of South African Trade Unions.