Posted on 02/13/2011 2:11:33 PM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
Pinky Khoabane: There's probably nothing worse than being repeatedly violated. And frankly, that's exactly how I feel about the news that you and I will have to fork out a couple of thousand rands each month on toll fees just so that we can use Gauteng's highways: 66c per kilometre is the figure mooted.
It would seem that the abuse began the moment the World Cup was announced to take place in South Africa. A bunch of unscrupulous, greedy businessmen began turning the wheels of corruption, overcharging the taxpayer billions to build roads and stadiums.
The Competition Commission has uncovered widespread collusion in the construction sector, in which owners held meetings to share out government tenders and decide, through a structure called "The Party", what they would charge.
The commission noted that the Green Point Stadium in Cape Town and the Moses Mabhida Stadium in Durban and some road projects might have been part of the bid-rigging and anti-competitive activity by this industry.
It is a disgrace that some of the leaders in this industry have been fingered for possible wrongdoing: Group Five, Grinaker, Murray & Roberts and others.
Right there, the taxpayer was being screwed.
Violation No 1.
I recently wrote of similar meetings held by the bosses of bread companies, who had had no scruples about gathering in a Dutch Reformed church on Sundays to devise ways of swindling the consumer. Talk about unholy alliances.
When we questioned whether South Africa - with its glaring inequalities between rich and poor - should be spending this type of money on roads and stadiums instead of housing, health and education, we were swiftly advised to shut up.
We were spun the line about how the money for the roads had been budgeted for beforehand and that some of the money being spent had been contributed by football's governing body, Fifa.
As it now transpires, we were duped.
Violation No 2.
Barely a year after the World Cup, we are being asked to pay for the roads through a fee that will be levied on cars travelling on the highways.
Depending on whom you speak to, this would be a way of paying for the roads - or maintaining the roads. Then again, there are those who say this would alleviate the congestion on the highways and could be a congestion charge similar to that used in other cities.
In effect, these repaired and improved highways would be for those who could afford it.
But how many more taxes are we supposed to pay in order to move around on this country's roads?
We are already paying several taxes including licence fees, parking fees, toll fees and now this tax.
I don't even want to get into the ludicrous traffic fines, with speed limits set so low that they simply allow for daylight robbery by some obese men and women hiding behind bushes. To ask us to drive at 60km/h in today's motor vehicles is asking for the ridiculous.
Anybody with any sense knows that the effects of this tax will be dire on the motorist and will have a ripple effect on food prices and the cost of public transport.
Taxis and food companies will have to increase their prices to offset the tariff.
Violation No 3.
In the middle of this uproar, the Minister of Transport, Sbu Ndebele, then invites us to a summit to be held in March, at which we would discuss ways in which the country's roads would be financed in future.
Which future are we discussing? The one in June 2011? That's when, according to South African National Roads Agency Limited advertisements, the toll fees will be implemented.
Furthermore, is this matter still up for debate?
The contraptions that are to do the deed - with scanners, cameras and all - are already set up across the province's highways, simply waiting to click away, take my details and send them somewhere where my bank account can be debited with the charges.
Surely, as in most countries where this system has either been proposed or implemented, a consultative process should have taken place beforehand. We should have had the summit, even a referendum, before the structures were erected.
Violation 4.
If indeed the minister takes our input seriously, what does he do if we say we don't want to pay? Commit wasteful expenditure by throwing money at the same lot who ripped us off in the first place?
Who are you kidding, Mr Minister?
Poor them. And probably not even getting reacharounds, either.
Looks like the South Africans created a PRIVATE COMPANY, with a monopoly to run their highways. Now the tolls are going through the roof and nothing can be done.
Luckily no one in the states is DUMB ENOUGH to follow that path...
(right MITCH DANIELS and RICK PERRY)
I wonder what Siener van Rensburg said about all this.
Looks like the South Africans created a PRIVATE COMPANY, with a monopoly to run their highways. Now the tolls are going through the roof and nothing can be done.
Luckily no one in the states is DUMB ENOUGH to follow that path...
(right MITCH DANIELS and RICK PERRY)
I do not hear it as much as before the economic downturn....but there was always some Free Trader Communist Globalist being quoted in the media that “Highways should all be toll roads” or words to that effect.
As for Mitch Daniels....I will do anything to make sure that Economic Anti-American is not elected to the White House. Selling the taxpayer funded Indiana Toll Road to a foreign company is not only treasonous....it just redistributed tax dollars to a private company. That is just another form of Socialism.
“As for Mitch Daniels....I will do anything to make sure that Economic Anti-American is not elected to the White House. Selling the taxpayer funded Indiana Toll Road to a foreign company is not only treasonous....it just redistributed tax dollars to a private company. That is just another form of Socialism.”
Wow. You’re even worse than me on the subject. There are a lot of FReepers who think that selling critical infrastructure to foreigners is just wonderful...they’ll probably come out again to defend him.
My daughter presently lives in Capetown.
The new stadium there was built in a remote place that is useless for continued use.
She describes crime on a level she has never seen before, and she has experienced it herself there.
A common trick is to pull over to the side of the road, as if one has car problems: when a Good Samaritan stops to give assistance he is robbed.
Or the opposite happens: it is terrifying to have car problems, as motorists are seen as ripe for the picking by highwaymen.
It is truly a country that has lost the essentials of a working society when trust has completely broken down.
It is actually passing the cost of running your two bit state on to every other american, Indiana trash to cheap to pay to operate their own state.
Greenpoint maybe lots of things, but on this point you are misinformed. Remote it is one thing it certainly is not. It is between the V&A waterfront and Sea Point an incredibly heavily traveled part of the world.
Having spent a lot of time there, I can tell you that South Africans do do a lot of whining, but it is a beautiful country and has a lot going for it. I would suggest Americans spend a bit of their mental energy gettign their own houses in order.
Who’s wasting mental energy ?
Don’t post if you don’t like the subject!
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