Pule Mabe's User-Pays Principle needs a reality check

I think very few would disagree with the principle of “user pays”. It’s universal, adopted since the dawn of humanity and in short, all economies are driven by this principle. If you want someone’s services or products, you pay for them and if you want more, you pay more.

However, what Mr Mabe and his cohorts fail to grasp is that while Gauteng’s e-toll scheme is indeed a “user-pays” one in principle, in reality it’s a users-don’t-pay scheme, well at least the vast majority thereof. And there’s only one reason for this situation: the inability to enforce payment for the principle to work. If people don’t pay, you have to entice or force them to do so and if you can’t, you have a failed user-pays scheme.

I find it quite amusing when Mr Mabe, in his letter to the president on 10 November, says:

“The user-pay principle has been highly efficient in the private sectors such as the telecommunications industry. The users know too well that they get service for what they pay for. The same principle has been applied excellently in the cable and satellite television industry.”

The question Mr Mabe needs to answer is this:

“What’s the difference between the e-toll system and the private sector telecommunications or satellite television industry?”

It’s simple, really, and boils down to the ease of enforcing an obligation. In his example of telecoms and satellite TV, if the user doesn’t pay, enforcement is imposed by... wait for it... easily terminated services — your services are turned off. Once you settle your debt, the services are turned back on again.

The culture of non-payment arises when those “easy-to-censure” services are not turned off for non-payment. Imagine if Vodacom allowed their users to get away with not paying and still provided the services. What do you think will happen? A culture of non-payment will develop. This is precisely what has happened with the provision of electricity to some towns and municipalities that fail to pay their bills and yet still receive the services.

This culture of non-payment doesn’t exist in the private sector. Yet in the case of government-supplied services such as electricity and unrestricted water, it happens a lot. The reason for this is a politically induced one. When Eskom had every right to cut off power for non-payment, the politicians intervened with government administration and ensured that Eskom continued to supply, at the cost of someone else. It appears the fear of lost votes gets in the way of good governance.

It may come as a surprise to Mr Mabe, but the e-toll system is a very different and difficult user-pays scheme to enforce. It’s just not that easy to turn off the use of a freeway network for those who don’t pay, and thus Sanral’s nightmare began. Had it done its homework, it would have known that for any “drive-now-pay-later” road use scheme to work, one needs a number of factors to be in place, the most basic of which are:

Acceptance of the scheme by the users. This required excellent public engagement and buy-in before the fact, not afterwards. It also required trust and rationality of a scheme that enabled a choice of alternative funding mechanisms contemplated and of alternative routes and public transport options. The Department of Transport failed dismally on all fronts, losing the most important ingredient for success from the start, public buy-in.

Once you have public buy-in, you need an administratively efficient and workable system, one that has accurate eNaTiS vehicle ownership information at all times and an efficient post office, along with a very efficient dispute resolution process in place to address the millions of queries related to cloned number-plates, incorrect vehicle owner details and so on. I’m afraid the scheme was challenged on all fronts here.

But let’s assume you have one and two above in place — now you have to coerce or force the non-payers to play ball and hopefully, there aren’t too many of these defiant citizens needing your coercive ways. Well, when it’s 80% of them and some three million road users in default to Sanral, you have a problem.

So, you’ve lost the people, the system is an administrative debacle and you have no way to enforce, Mr Mabe. What now? How do you remove access to the freeway network? You’ve threatened them with criminal records only to find you couldn’t legally do so. You’ve offered 60% discounts and payment terms to entice, but no one fell for it. You’ve summonsed thousands and then put that process on hold for nine months and yes, that test case will not disappear. The authorities threaten withholding vehicle licences without even contemplating the legal framework or unintended consequences thereof. When will this madness end?

Given the chance, why is the government still surprised the public is having nothing to do with its irrational, expensive, administratively cumbersome user-pays scheme. Especially when adding the fact that Sanral allowed the cost of the Gauteng freeway to be corruptly inflated to R17.9-billion, about 60% higher than their own final estimates of R11.8-billion just before construction began. Add to that Sanral’s e-toll operations tender awarded to Kapsch TrafficCom’s ETC-JV at R6.2-billion in 2009, only to be inflated to R9.9-billion when the contract was signed two years later.

So while we have no conflict with you on the principle of user pays, Mr Mabe, its the practical reality of non-payment that eludes this disastrous and poorly informed decision that haunts you, and there’s virtually nothing you can do about it.

The authorities have two choices, and merely saying that the “user-pays principle” is their choice is not one of them. Espousing the same slogan in search of a different result for the failed scheme borders on insanity.

The government must either:

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  Decide on scrapping the e-toll funding mechanism, because it costs nothing to do so, no cancellation fees and no revenue loss to Treasury, and work with society to apply one or more of the existing and efficient alternative funding mechanisms at your disposal or

  
  


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  It continues to go to war with its citizens by laboriously trying to force the failed scheme down their throats.

  
  

I think if Mr Mabe checks the history books, those in authority generally don’t do well, or win, with the latter option. DM