More concerns over toll road

More concerns over toll road
April 19, 2007 Edition 1
Tony Carnie

NEARLY 1 000 letters from South Africa and countries across the world have been pouring in to voice concern about the latest round of the Wild Coast toll-road proposals.

They include a suggestion from the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry that an Australian mining company should be asked to pay a substantial share of the costs of building a new highway to service its proposed dune mining venture just south of the Wild Coast Sun Casino.

Mthatha academic, advocate Lwazi Kubukeli, suggested that previous attempts to inform rural communities in the former Transkei about the toll plan had been a sham and could not "by any stretch of the imagination" be classified as a meaningful attempt to consult the affected people.

There has also been a chorus of opposition from residents of the Amanzimtoti area and other Durban commuters, who complained about "highway robbery" and being milked by private toll companies to finance a new highway in the Eastern Cape that they would rarely use.

Klaus Topfer, the former German environment minister and head of the United Nations Environment Programme in Nairobi, is among several prominent international and local conservationists who have also voiced concern about the impacts of the proposed toll road and the Australian-backed dune-mining plans along the Wild Coast.

Altogether, 865 written submissions have been received so far by a new group of consultants employed by the SA National Roads Agency (Sanral) to conduct a fresh environmental impact assessment (EIA) for the controversial toll road.

Unwilling
The first application was rejected by Environment Minister Marthinus van Schalkwyk in December 2004 because the original consultants were found to have close financial links to the private N2 Wild Coast Toll Consortium, which includes Stewart Scott International, Group Five, Grinaker-LTA, Intertoll and Rand Merchant Bank.

The new consultants released a final scoping report late last week, which suggests that Sanral is unwilling to consider a range of alternative routing proposals and would prefer to stick to its original route plan from Durban to East London.

The consultants also said Sanral was determined to ensure that the financial impacts of tolling on local communities should be considered at a later stage by the minister of transport, and not as part of the EIA process. However, dozens of letters from Durban commuters have emphasised their wish that the toll cost issue should not be ignored.
As an example, Amanzimtoti resident Ronnie Wobben calculated that if the proposed Isipingo plaza toll fee was R5, he would have to find an extra R5 000 over a year to commute to work in Springfield Park and for other trips.

Aldine Armstrong, an attorney representing SA Breweries, Toyota SA and SATI Container Services, emphasised that the entire EIA process had to be repeated afresh because the first assessment was legally tainted.

Armstrong said Sanral also need to demonstrate a clear need and desirability to toll the Isipingo to Park Rynie section of the N2 freeway and to conduct an independent socio-economic impact study of tolling in the greater Durban area.

Robin Boustred, Chairman of the Durban Chamber of Commerce and Industry infrastructure committee, said it was essential to conduct an economic impact assessment as many of the chamber's 3 400 members could be affected financially by the plan. Boustred said he was not in a position to comment on the Wild Coast dune-mining proposals by Australian-based Mineral Resource Commodities group, but he suggested this company should be asked to make a "substantial contribution" to the costs of new roads along the Wild Coast.

In his submission to the consultants, chamber official Colin Butler said the full cost implications of the plan for business, ratepayers, eThekwini Metro Council and harbour community had to be calculated in direct and indirect costs.

Barrier
Members of the South Operational Entity Development Committee said they were concerned that the Isipingo toll plaza would act as a barrier to economic growth and that revenue from Isipingo would be used to cross-subsidise toll fees further along the route to East London.

Lwazi Kubukeli, an Mthatha-based researcher, said she had spent three weeks interviewing councillors, traditional leaders, health workers and village residents during the first EIA process, and it was clear to her that some of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged people in Pondoland had not been properly consulted.

In the village of Ntafufu, for example, the community had never been formally notified that the local junior secondary school would have to be relocated, and it seemed there had been "a callous disregard" for the well-being and the future of some of these communities.