Fiscal SpaceProposedMedium TermTransport

SANRAL Road Funding Model Reform Post E-Tolls

Theme: Infrastructure finance

First raisedNov 2021Last discussedOct 2024Dormant — not discussed in 12+ months24 meetings on the record ↓

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Assessment

Growth Impact3/5

Feasibility3/5

Responsible: SANRAL / Department of Transport / National Treasury

Feasibility Assessment

Medium. Fiscal necessity is driving urgency. Any user-pay mechanism faces the e-toll precedent; a fuel levy increase (R0.20/litre) is politically the path of least resistance.

Description

South Africa's e-toll system on Gauteng freeways was officially discontinued on 12 April 2024, after more than a decade of near-total public non-compliance. Gantries were physically disconnected; the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) debt of approximately R20 billion is being settled 70% by National Treasury and 30% by the Gauteng Provincial Government. SANRAL's traditional toll plazas continue to operate nationwide, with tariffs increased by 4.84% effective 1 March 2025. The e-toll episode exposed the fundamental challenge of road funding in South Africa: the fuel levy, historically the primary source of road maintenance revenue, is declining in real terms as vehicles become more fuel-efficient, and faces accelerating long-term erosion as EVs (which pay no fuel levy) gain market share. The Department of Transport is developing a Road Funding Policy that must address: the fiscal gap left by the fuel levy decline, the replacement revenue model for EVs and electric trucks, the equitable contribution of heavy freight vehicles that cause disproportionate road damage, and the feasibility of distance-based charging (a modern tolling concept) without repeating the political failure of e-tolls. The R1 trillion infrastructure programme requires SANRAL to maintain and expand the national road network, but its revenue base is structurally challenged.

OECD

Referenced in OECD Economic Surveys: South Africa

OECD SA Survey (2020, 2022, 2025). Related reform area identified across OECD surveys.

With e-tolls scrapped and the fuel levy declining as EVs enter the fleet, South Africa faces a road funding gap that will widen every year — the Road Funding Policy review is not optional; it is urgent. — OUTA Road Funding Analysis, 2024

International Comparisons

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Panama2007

Panama's canal expansion (2007–2016, USD 5.25 billion) added a third lock set accommodating New Panamax vessels (14,000 TEU), doubling capacity and capturing larger share of global trade routes. The project was financed through bond issuance backed by canal toll revenue — infrastructure self-financing without sovereign budget pressure. Canal revenues now contribute 10% of Panama's GDP. SA's port expansion decisions face identical financing structure choices; Panama's toll-backed bond model avoided the fiscal tradeoffs that delay SA's infrastructure pipeline.

Approach

The expansion was put to a national referendum in 2006 and approved before construction began, which settled the legitimacy question that toll increases would otherwise have raised. The canal authority is an autonomous entity with its own power to set tolls and retain revenue; it financed the works from retained earnings plus a syndicated loan package from development banks, secured on future toll income rather than on a sovereign guarantee. Toll structures were revised in consultation with the shipping lines that would pay them, segmented by vessel type and capacity.

Timeline: Referendum 2006, construction 2007–2016; toll-backed debt serviced from operating revenue throughout

Lessons for South Africa

The e-toll failure was a consent failure before it was a technology failure, and Panama's sequence — public mandate first, tariff-setting authority vested in the body that answers for the asset, financing raised against the resulting revenue — is the order SA reversed on the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project. For the Road Funding Policy this argues that any distance-based charge on EVs or heavy freight must be settled as a public bargain about who pays for road damage before SANRAL issues debt against it. It also argues for user-charge revenue being visibly hypothecated to the network that generated it, which the fuel levy, flowing to the National Revenue Fund, never was.

Parliamentary record

24 meetings

Committee sittings this reform was drawn from, most recent first. Each row opens the meeting on this site; the PMG link goes to the source record.

Status History

tracked since Mar 2026

Recorded as Proposed when status tracking began — held since at least Mar 2026.
Mar 2026

Data as of 2026-08-24 · latest PMG meeting 2026-08-21