SANRAL is peddling fallacies
The City of Cape Town wants to place on record that SANRAL, over the past two weeks, has made statements about the proposed tolling of the N1 and N2 freeway that are false and misleading. Read more below:
On Tuesday 19 August 2014, SANRAL's Chief Executive Officer, Mr Nazir Alli, addressed Parliament's Portfolio Committee on Transport. He reportedly accused the City of Cape Town of reneging on a confidentiality undertaking concerning information such as toll tariffs and revenue to be earned by the operator of the proposed N1 and N2 highway toll project. He was quoted as saying that the City had reneged on an undertaking to keep this information confidential until the tender was awarded.
However, the City never gave such an undertaking and the City has not reneged on the undertakings that it has given. The City's representatives agreed, as an interim measure, to keep information obtained from the bid documents confidential. This allowed them to draft supplementary founding papers in the City's review of SANRAL's decision to toll the N1 and N2 highways. The City's supplementary founding papers contain details of the toll project, including its cost. In terms of the agreement, if SANRAL wanted to keep parts of the City's supplementary founding papers secret, then a court or a judge would have to determine the issue.
The City has at all times asserted that the public has a right to know the facts about the proposed toll project, and that its court papers should be filed openly.
SANRAL has applied to the Western Cape High Court to prevent the City from filing its supplementary founding papers as an open, public record. The Court heard argument on 4 and 5 August 2014, and judgment is reserved. Until that application is determined, the City may not make its supplementary founding papers public.
SANRAL is now taking advantage of this position. While the City is prevented from releasing facts about the costs of the toll project, on 10 August 2014 SANRAL's spokesperson Mr Vusi Mona commented on such matters. Mr Mona said that ‘SANRAL's allocation from the fiscus is about R10 billion per annum for the entire national network and the N1/N2 Winelands project requires just about that amount'.
All that the City may say publically at this stage is Mr Mona's claim that the project will cost about R10 billion is false. SANRAL is preventing the City from informing the public of the true costs of the project. It isextraordinary that SANRAL feels entitled to make such claims while preventing the City from answering them in public. The City will make the facts available to the public as soon as it is legally able to do so.
The City and its representatives have at all times acted strictly in accordance with their confidentiality undertakings. The City's attorneys have therefore written to SANRAL asking for clarification whether Mr Alli was misquoted when he reportedly claimed otherwise. He has been invited, if he was misquoted, to publicly correct the mistake. But if Mr Alli was not misquoted, then he has been called upon to explain why he made a misleading statement to Parliament, disparaging the City.
This illustrates why it is of the utmost importance for public institutions such as SANRAL to operate in a transparent and accountable manner.
Statement issued by Councillor Brett Herron, Mayoral Committee Member: Transport for Cape Town, City of Cape Town, August 22 2014
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