Three big Durban businesses say the impact of toll booths on the city is being ignored.
|||Three big Durban businesses have lodged papers in the North Gauteng High Court to challenge the authorisation process of the new Wild Coast toll road, which will rely heavily on funding from Durban road users.
Toyota South Africa Motors, the Southgate Business Park and the Umbogintwini Industrial Association are asking the court to review the decision by Environment Minister Edna Molewa to allow the SA National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) to go ahead with the toll road, despite vigorous objections.
They argue in court papers that a social and economic assessment of the impact that tolling would have on people and businesses in the Durban South Basin should and could have been done.
Businesses go on to say that “contrary to various sources of legal and technical advice since 2000”, Sanral has “tenaciously refused” to assess the consequences and the knock-on multiplier effect that “burdensome” tolling would have on people and business.
They point out that such an assessment is one of the many processes required to be undertaken under the mandatory environment impact assessment that was carried out before Molewa’s decision to allow Sanral to go ahead with the proposed upgrade and construction of the toll road from Prospecton in eThekwini to Gonubie in the Eastern Cape.
“Yet Sanral has insisted that such a determination must be left to its sole discretion, and as the authorisation and minister’s decision reveals, Sanral successfully convinced the department to allow this oversight to prevail.”
Now the businesses want to know how this could be. “It raises the question why,” they say.
This is the crux of a founding affidavit lodged in court in Pretoria by Aldine Armstrong, a specialist environmental attorney representing the businesses.
“Toyota, Southgate and Umbogintwini have committed themselves to seeing this matter through and their serious intent is reflected in the appointment of top senior counsel Marcus Gilbert, SC, who is assisted by another constitutional expert, advocate Max du Plessis,” the businesses said.
Sanral proposes to establish seven main toll plazas: three south of Durban along the South Coast, and 11 ramp plazas. The main toll plaza near Isipingo and Prospecton will catch traffic coming to and from Durban and the south.
Toyota, the businesses at Southgate Business Park and Umbogintwini Industrial Association, as well as other big businesses in the area, the eThekwini Municipality and the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry have objected to the proposal, based on the economic and social hardships it would mean for business and the effects it would have on employees, contractors and the community.
Overheads
Businesses said the tolls would pose a burden on employees, who would use these roads to commute to work, most of whom were from low-income communities. Those companies reliant on road haulage would be faced with a financial burden on their operations because of an increase in their overheads.
An economic assessment conducted by Imani Development, on behalf of the applicants, found that the toll would raise costs of transporting imports through the ports.
It was also submitted that the proposed tolls would create a barrier for growth in the area
Toyota, Southgate Park and the Umbogintwini alliance say that since the beginning of the process, Armstrong had brought the errors and flaws of the proposal, along with recommendations, to the attention of Sanral and its consultants, as well as to the attention of the Department of Environmental Affairs and to the minister by way of an internal appeal.
In the first process in 2003 and then in 2005, representations were submitted on behalf of the applicants in respect of the proposed toll. In 2003, the then minister of environmental affairs, Valli Moosa, received 223 appeals.
Eighty percent related to the environmental impact assessment and legal issues, 72 percent raised concerns about public participation and socio-economic issues and 31 percent to tolling issues.
The applicants have consistently explained that the requirement to undertake such assessments is an integral part of an environmental impact assessment, required by law, and the failure of which renders the application fatally flawed.
Court papers have now been served on Molewa, the Department of Environmental Affairs, Sanral and the Minister of Transport.
The respondents have 15 working days to respond from the time they were served with the papers, which was last week.
The historically disadvantaged Amidiba clan of the Amapondo community on the Wild Coast also plans to go to court to fight the plan, but its lawyers have not yet lodged papers because they are still waiting for the minister to reply to questions that they have posed.
The KZN province is also opposed to the plan and a spokesman for the premier, Sibiya Ndabe, said last night that the cabinet had decided last year to engage the national government on the issue.
eThekwini Speaker Logie Naidoo said that while the municipality did not agree with the location of the proposed N2 toll, the municipality had no intention of taking another sphere of government to court over it.
“We do not agree with where the proposed toll will be as it will tax residents for using the road.
“One of the issues that we are concerned about is that there is no alternative route for motorists to use if they don’t want to pay the toll fee.
“We will continue to engage with all stakeholders in an effort to resolve this issue,” Naidoo said. – Daily News with additional reporting by Rizwana Sheik Umar and Lee Rondganger