The Department of Transport obviously doesn’t think SA motorists have to pay enough for the privilege to drive on SA roads. The department is investigating a new tax called a ‘traffic management levy’. It’s supposed to help finance traffic management resources. We wonder what it has been doing until now.
The newly proposed tax appeared in a white paper that the department published last week. This tax could be added to existing motor vehicle licence fees, the existing fuel sales tax, or both.
What will transport in the future cost?
“Additional and innovative funding strategies for traffic management functions will be investigated and introduced. This will include the allocation of a percentage of the roads budget for traffic control purposes. The introduction of a traffic-management levy to vehicle licence fees and fuel sales will be investigated,” the whitepaper reads.
Its introduction isn’t a foregone conclusion but the South African government seems awfully keen on jamming its hands further into citizens’ pockets of late. This proposal probably isn’t going away.
It also seems the department wants to try that whole ‘licence demerit system’ thing again. This is part of the planned improvement to fine collection protocols related to traffic offences. And the non-payment thereof. While that’s a great idea, the implementation will probably be easier said than done. If collecting fines was easy, everybody would be doing it.
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Along with the proposed new tax and fine collection improvement, the department hopes to improve ‘incident management’, or, what happens when there’s an oopsie. Imagine a South Africa where the ambulance shows up before the tow trucks. What a time to be alive. Provided the accident wasn’t too severe, we guess.
This is just a white paper so far, and there are a few hurdles to clear before anything’s official. At least the folks in charge seem to have a general idea of the direction we need to head. Whether we get there or not, it’ll probably be an interesting journey.
Source: BusinessTech