KwaZulu-Natal (KZN) MEC for Transport, Community Safety and Liaison, Willies Mchunu, has gladly welcomed decision by the South African National Road Agency (Sanral) that no toll gate will be constructed at Isipingo as part of the proposed Wild Coast toll linking Durban with East London.
KwaZulu-Natal government, communities and business leaders had been up in arms against the proposed construction of the toll gate in Isipingo as part of the proposed Wild Coast toll road.
However yesterday (Tuesday) the chairman of the KwaZulu-Natal Portfolio Committee on Transport, Mxolisi Kaunda, told the committee that a decision had been taken at the recent strategic meeting of the transport department in Cape Town that no tolling would happen on the side of KZN in as far as this proposed toll road was concerned.
“The proposed Isipingo toll has been re-located to the side of Eastern Cape. That was the position of KwaZulu-Natal all along as we always felt that the province has been over-tolled. In anyway, the longest route of this toll road development will be in the Eastern Cape. Given that KwaZulu-Natal is a tourist province, we always feared that if you over-tolled the province you will chase away the tourists from the province,” said Kaunda.
Kaunda said the province was already over-tolled and adding more toll gates would be an overburden to the province.
“That is the position with Isipingo now and we welcome it,” said Kaunda.
Mchunu yesterday applauded the decision not to place a further toll gate in the province, saying these were good news.
It has always been the position of the KwaZulu-Natal government that placing a toll gate at Isipingo/Amanzimtoti will have a negative impact on the poor commuters and workers from the South Coast rural areas that commute daily to either the city of Durban or to Isipingo. This would have had an effect of pushing up the travelling costs for poorest of the poor residing on the south of the city and put more pressure on their small financial resources.
As the government we have always said that putting more toll gates in the Durban area will cause further financial hardship for commuters and slow down economic growth. We therefore welcome the decision not to put any toll gate on the side ofKwaZulu-Natal as part of this Wild Coast toll road,” said Mchunu.
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