Billing errors associated with Gauteng’s e-tolling system are not a reflection of the efficacy of the tolling system itself but are rather the result of an outdated electronic national administration traffic information system (eNaTIS), South African National Roads Agency Limited (Sanral) CEO Nazir Alli said on Wednesday.

“The system that records the vehicles is stable, but what has been the issue is the billing… but its not anything that Sanral or the project has done, we rely on the eNaTIS system, which doesn’t always have updated vehicle user details.

“We are looking at regulations [governing eNaTIS) and seeing this as an opportunity to fix and update the system. At the moment, we don’t have a regulation in our country that forces us to update our information when we register our vehicles,” he told the Advisory Panel on the Socioeconomic Impact of E-tolls.

Submissions to the panel, which had been tasked by Gauteng Premier David Makhura with investigating the overall impact of the tolling system on the province, concluded on Wednesday after Sanral made representations in defence of the system.

Sanral had earlier argued that instituting a fuel levy instead of the e-toll user-pays system would not be an “adequate, equitable or efficient” way of funding the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP), as those that lived outside of the province would be forced to pay for the upgrading of roads that they did not use.

Transport economists acting on behalf of the roads agency added that the long-term savings of e-tolls and the GFIP for commuters outweighed the associated costs and toll tariffs.

However, during separate submissions to the panel, civil society, business, opposition parties and taxi associations maintained that the system was expensive and ultimately amounted to a tax on the poor, raising the cost of public transport and consumer goods.

The panel would present its findings and recommendations to the Premier by the end of the month.