Nonprofit Organisation Against Tax Abuse (Outa) has called into question the truthfulness and accuracy of the South African National Roads Agency Limited’s (Sanral’s) claim on October 26 that R43-billion of its R45.9-billion total debt is attributed to the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP).

“We cannot accept that R43-billion of this is attributed to GFIP, especially as the Sanral court papers reflected in early 2012, when the GFIP construction was virtually complete, that the GFIP capital cost amounted to R20.6-billion.

“We also know that Sanral’s liabilities in their 2012 financial statements reflect their capital market long-term bonds at R28.4-billion and the total value of these bonds cannot all be attributed to GFIP,” Outa said in a statement on November 4.

Outa also noted that, according to Sanral’s financial statements from 2012 to 2022, National Treasury has allocated R22.4-billion to Sanral for the financial management of the GFIP debt.

Outa says this suggests that something is fundamentally wrong with Treasury’s statement that Sanral now has R43-billion debt relating to GFIP.

"We believe that the numbers that are being presented by Treasury and Sanral are wrong. The GFIP debt is not R43-billion," says Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage.

“Even if Sanral did not settle R1 of the initial capital debt or the interest accrued, a bond of R20-billion over the past 12 years at 10% interest will not amount to more than R33-billion. The question we need answered is: what has Sanral done with the government grants received for GFIP over the last decade?”

Duvenhage said it is important that the Gauteng provincial government and National Treasury do not allow themselves to be “hoodwinked” by these numbers provided by Sanral.

Outa has called for an in-depth look into Sanral’s financials, including how much was borrowed for GFIP and how Sanral allocated the grants received from Treasury over the years.

“There is too much smoke and mirrors related to these numbers provided by government,” Outa said. Sanral and government have indicated that the GFIP debt was not ringfenced, yet that is not what was presented in court cases fought by Outa in 2012.

“What we now need is absolute transparency and clarity on the accounting principles that Treasury and Sanral have assigned to the numbers they are presenting to the public,” Duvenage said.

Outa has noted statements made by Gauteng Premier Panyaza Lesufi on how Gauteng will pay its share of the GFIP debt, and the undertakings to consult with the public on this. 

"Outa welcomes [Lesufi's] statement that e-tolls will not be used as a mechanism to finance whatever portion of the debt that Gauteng is being asked to pick up," Duvenage said, adding that Outa was looking forward to engaging with Lesufi on his consultation process on what the extent of the debt is that they should commit to and how it will be paid.