Almost 3 years ago, Wonkie published an article providing e-toll protest options for the public to act against the controversial gantry system being implemented in Gauteng. As predicted then, the option to “Suck it up, pay the high tolls fees, and continue whingeing about it for the next decade” appears to be the preferred choice… or not?
Since the South African public seem determined to show the ANC just how far they are able to bend over, Wonkie thought it best to provide a positive spin on the e-tolls to help angry citizens sleep better at night. Below are 5 positive aspects of the e-tolls you might not have considered:
1. National unity
As frequently demonstrated by events like sporting World Cups, having a common adversary helps people of all ilk rally together. If 5 years ago, Wonkie suggested that the DA, Cosatu, Julius Malema, and a huge chunk of the South African public would all band together in protest against the ANC, you might have choked on your soya boerewors.
Perhaps, the ANC are experimenting with a more in-house strategy to build national unity with the e-tolls. Who knows? After several years of planning to make a plan, the National Planning Commission must have come up with something out-of-the-box that government could actually implement successfully.
Of course, with sporting events, that warm patriotic feeling is usually replaced with the warm feeling of pee after the event is all over. Wonkie wonders whether the constant reminder every time people pass under an e-toll gantry will help make that feeling of unity last for much longer.
2. Self discovery
After all the anger, and cursing of Sanral and the ANC behind the water-cooler, most Gautengers should take a brief moment to acknowledge something about themselves. In fact, more important than developing a sense of national unity, the e-tolls are an important tool for personal development.
If you are one of the many who ranted furiously about the e-tolls, but could not be bothered with any real act of civil disobedience (no, that witty tweet you sent does not count), then you should probably take this opportunity to reflect on your mettle. Even what you do now with respect to e-tolls speaks to your courage and conviction on the issue.
Are you a passive-aggressive individual who will let it all slide in resignation after all that fury, or will you raise your middle finger to the e-tolls and be counted?
E-toll Protests: Give them a sign – don’t just whine!
3. Hope in 2014 elections
The e-tolls will contribute positively to many stakeholders in the 2014 South African elections. The DA, and FF+ can simply change their last ineffective campaign strategy from “Don’t vote for Zuma” to an updated, ineffective “Don’t vote for e-tolls” one. They will be happy because they think they’ll save effort (once more) by not having to develop and present a proper strategy for improving South Africa. One day, they will realise that the masses need more than some temporary carrot to convince them to change their allegiance.
The ANC, on the other hand, are probably punting on the fact that the poor, unemployed masses couldn’t care less about e-tolls. They will be thrilled that the DA will be neutered with their focus on a red herring. An investigation of the money trail around e-tolls might reveal some healthy “pension fund contributions” to senior ANC friends and members – of course, there is no risk of such an investigation because of the Protection of Corruption Bill (oops, Wonkie meant the Protection of Information Bill).
Dipuo Peters, ANC Transport Minister, defends e-Tolls: Can’t you just see it coming?
Cosatu will also need to reevaluate their alliance with the ANC, or accept that its tail should be firmly stitched between its legs. The unions, despite some fiery rhetoric, have proven all but useless in stopping the ANC agenda. Cosatu should grow with some personal development lessons from this too.
Of course, the final stakeholder is the South African public – at least there will be a bit more optimism that things will change after the next election. The ANC will loosen their grip on power with more defections from disgruntled non-whites, even more so now because of the e-tolls.
4. Better roads
Leaving aside that there are definitely more efficient and cost-effective means of collecting funds to maintain the roads, the e-tolling system has delivered a better, upgraded road network. Believe it or not, some tiny percentage of funds collected from the e-tolls will remain in South Africa and out of dodgy pockets, to pay towards maintaining the roads.
No doubt, within the next year or two, when said dodgy pockets are hungry once more, the e-toll fees will increase. At that point, more comparisons will be made with how expensive toll roads are in Norway and Germany, completely ignoring minor facts like the excellent public transport system and significantly higher GDP per capita in those countries.
Still, the roads are better now than they were before. Whoopee.
5. Greener South Africa
Nando’s on top of it, as always!
Just think though, every time you see Sanral, Ismail Vadi, e-tolls, or Dipuo Peters gush on about how valuable the e-tolls are, and how South Africans should be grateful to the ANC for saving them, doesn’t it just want to make you turn off your televisions? How green is that.
CLICK HERE TO COMMENT on e-tolls in South Africa, the ANC, and what you will/ won’t do!
If the thought of an extra few hundred Rands going out each month with the arrival of the Gauteng e-tolls and the increase in petrol price in December is dampening your Christmas spirit, then perhaps now is a good time to adopt an optimistic outlook and visit this lottery website. One ticket is all it could take for you not to have to worry about e-tolls or South Africa ever again.
Taking chances on the lottery of course means you have to wait a while for results. If immediate gratification is more your style, and you believe more in luck than in probability, then why not try your hand at some of the top-rated online casino South Africa options now, or if you’d prefer, visit Wonkie’s own detailed South African online casino directory or this online casino news website instead. Wonkie readers based in India that are wondering what all the fuss about public corruption is, can visit the best online casino in India instead.
In all seriousness, don’t let e-tolls get you down – make sure your voice, or finger, of protest is heard on more than just the internet – give them a sign!
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Related articles on e-tolls, and the ANC:
COMMENT on e-tolls in South Africa, the ANC, and what you will do.
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I think people have just about had enough of the ANC and all their crap. Hopefully Thuli Madonsela lasts long enough in her office to look into the money trail behind the e-tolls… after the Nkandla expose, I somehow doubt it.
And yeah – good idea, I’ll drop my window and show the gantry my finger the next time I drive under one… LOL!
Although I do not live in Gauteng I am very nauseated by the e-tolls. This gives me more reasons not to vote for the ANC.
What happened to the anything but Zuma campaign?
I will never vote for ANC again – too much corruption and they’ve completely lost touch with what the people need. As a traveller from Soweto daily on these toll roads, I can confirm that I will NEVER sign up for etag – let them try to prosecute me if they want.
There is going to be a mass of prosecutions for not having e-tags and even more for people not paying. There is going to be a large number of false number plates’
Thank you ANC for turning the general public into criminals. But please you can now stop your false advertising.
Where are you Zapiro at least you can upset the satanists on this one.
You cannot be prosicuted for not being tagged, they can only prosicute you for non payment of toll fees.
I would say the ANC might have cooked their last goose on this issue. That said, the masses that vote for the ANC and their promises and lies, mostly do not have a vehicle and as taxi’s and busses are exempt from E-Toll might feel this only applies to the rich people?
Will those people consisting of 70 % of our population, give or take, understand the impact of E-Toll and increase in petrol prices on their dalily lives? Bread, mieliemeel, milk, meat, parafffin etc will all increase in price as a result of these hikes, that have to be carried by suppliers.
The rich Fat Cats have so much money it will be a drop in the ocean for them. How do you warrant an 8 million Rand monthly salary? The amounts earned by some of these people are criminal. So much good we could do with just a percentage of those high income earners salaries.
Sadly the rich are getting richer, the poor are getting pooorer and the tiny middle class are battling to pay their bonds and school fees and survive.
Eish, welcome to Africa.
According to StatsSA, taking their projected population figures by province for 2013, the total population of Gauteng is +/- 24% of the population of South Africa. That means that 76% of South Africa’s population live OUTSIDE of Gauteng and, therefore, don’t give a monkey’s **** for e-Tolls. So e-Tolls won’t affect THEIR votes. Add to them the huge numbers in Gauteng who either have no vehicle or rely on public transport (trains, buses, taxis, etc [if there is an etc]) and the number of those who couldn’t give a toss increases to way over 80%. Sadly, this could never be a serious campaign issue outside of Gauteng – because it doesn’t exist outside of Gauteng.
As to your last but one sentence: Yes – the poor ARE getting poorer. Yes – the middle class ARE battling to pay ….. BUT you have to remember that many of the “rich” are also getting poorer – not perhaps by very much but – apart from the likes of Shabby Shakes and other (oops! I almost said ‘criminals’) sticky-fingered ones – the trend is slightly downward.
Only the “FAT CATS” are NOT getting poorer – and, sadly, that is an issue that the political “fat cats” seem able to keep away from the public eye for most of the time.
We can only hope that there are enough ancestors looking after Thuli Madonsela that she will live long enough to complete her exposé of all the garbage that the ANC is “sweeping under the carpet”
e-Tolls are yet another money making racket that an overseas company convinced the ANC that in order to make a great deal of extra cash flow was necessary in order to keep the cookie jar healthy. However when cANCer announced the e-Toll plan they forgot to mention that a considerable amount of money would be finding its way overseas to cover the cost of e-Tolling systems. Who in government care anyway as they will be like mini bus taxis, exempt from paying toll fees.
We can try to boycott the system and not use the highways, but that would put a huge pressure on all the small back roads. I for one, would be lost if I had to use back roads to get to eg. OR Thambo
Dear Collitjies, not being tagged means you wont be paying toll fees. You w ill be prosecuted if you don’t have a tag.
There are three problems with buying an e-tag.
Number one. You must supply your bank account number so they can deduct the e-fees. This creates two more problems Number One. Most people live on overdraft what happens when the account is in overdraft will the bank pay out. Number two. There will be any number of bank account numbers floating around who will be responsible for losses when the hackers are done.
Number Two. When municipal combined billing was introduced many consumers were grossly overcharged and a mess entailed. How can we be assured that it will not happen with e-tolls.
Number three. Who will have oversight to ensure that the e-tolls are correct. Given the bunch of clowns running this Government we can be certain that there will be as many or more queries than prosecutions.
Another question, with all the prosecutions how will the courts deal with all the other infringements. As it is now the courts are overloaded.
I must make an apology, I called the Government a bunch of clowns. What i really meant was a bunch of incompetent clowns.
This e-toll saga shows once again, the ANC government and their cronies, have no idea how the citizens of this country are trying to get thru life, day by day, while they float on a cloud of luxury, pots of cash and ‘why should I care’ attitude!
I am not a twitter bug, can somebody please pass these messages on via twitter, to the relevant parties.
1. Ms. Madonsela PLEASE get yourself a backbone in place. You sound and look like a wet blanket, not to mention you weak, sloppy, senseless, recommendations to that idiot Zuma who will no doubt disregard your existance!
2. Nelson Mandela has passed on. May he rest in Peace. Now, if those idiot, uncaring, big spending ANC cronies will refrain from arranging a multi million dollar mausoleum for His remains, instead use the taxpayers pennies to build homes for the poor and homeless, feed
the hungry children, Madiba can rest, instead of spinning in his grave in shame. His family heirs will no doubt have a truckload of inheritance to afford a nice headstone.
I am worried, the usual bunch of ANC apologists have nothing to say. Is it because they are making so much loot from this criminal government, or because they are so poor because of this criminal government that they have to walk everywhere or risk their lives in a taxi.
I do not want to cause controversy or denigrate the great contribution that Madiba, may he rest in peace, made to this country, but If FW had not released Madiba, had FW and his gang of uglies not negotiated the end of Apartheid, civil war would have become inevitable, sooner rather than later, and we would have a situation like Syria where the Government would not listen to the protesters and shot them instead as happened in Sharpeville. FW was therefore the real liberator but the ANC want us to think they won a war.
Let us take time to remind EVERYONE of what the late, great Nelson Mandela said at his Inauguration in May 1994 – nineteen and a half years ago!
“Never! – – Never! – – Never again, in this beautiful country of ours, will one (group) oppress another” [ in brackets is my interpretation of the meaning].
It seems to me that ONE GROUP (namely the ANC) has, for almost 15 years, being oppressing just about EVERY other group and their supporters don’t even see their own oppression!
E-Tolls is but a TINY example.
Mandela was an idealist – unfortunately not a visionary.
We can reminisce till the cows come home (to Zuma?) on the role that Madiba made to save us from a civil war and his contribution to this country. What he did not do was introduce e-tolls, he had nothing to do with that fiasco. The ANC have let him down.
@ Garth, if you don’t use the highways, they surely cannot force you to register for e-tag, purely on the fact that you reside in Gauteng?
I have a friend, very silly friend, who sat in a line for 4 hours to register for e-tag, and a very silly tenant who ordered hers through a company, who courier to your door. They phoned us to deliver here, but wanted our id number, so told them to go hop off a bus or deliver to said silly tenants work address.
The ANC supporters club are still quiet on the issue. Maybe they don’t want to embarrass themselves or they are also against e-tolling but want to toe the party line.
I agree with turnaround not to give your ID to any arbitrary person. If you supply your address they know where you live, is that not privileged information.
I am also waiting for someone to argue with their bank because their bank account has been emptied by a hacker who got his account number from an e-tolls employee.
My bank has warned me not to give my account or ID to anyone’
C’mon all you ANC fellow travelers have some guts to agree with your party or to disagree.