The Congress of South African Trade Unions, jointly with the alliance, is going back to the expensive toll gate at Swartruggens to continue with its program to put pressure to our own government to implement their resolution on reducing the fees at the Swartruggens toll gate which is the most expensive toll gate in the RSA.

It is on record that our provincial government and legislature of the NW resolved in 2014 that the toll fees must be reduced from R75 to R58 and that there must be a flat rate for everyone who use the toll gate, that the matter of extending the radius must be discussed in the task team meeting which includes the discount of the areas surrounding Zeerust, Groot Marico and Kgetleng, and that it must cover everybody, not only farmers who have been benefiting from day one of the toll gate by paying R3,R4 and R17 as per the discount arrangement which excluded poor farm workers in particular.

We call on all workers and all motorists to support our action as it benefits them also.

Sanral and Bakwena making a lot of money, while poor communities benefit nothing from the toll gate or from the current construction project that is taking place on the N4 road. Only people from outside the NW province are benefiting. There is no social responsibility that is taking workers and community out of poverty, while capitalists such as Bakwena are making lots of profit using the African name.

We are going back to the expensive toll gate on 27th March 2015, calling on the provincial government to implement its decisions as per the premier’s pronouncement during his state of the province address on 6th March 2015.

We call on the ministerial task team to be convened by the office of the Minister of Transport to deal with implementation of the matter.

The task team must meet to deal with the outstanding issues and to make sure that we conclude our program. We have been meeting in the task team since 2012 and we are not making any progress except only the pronouncement by provincial government that they agree with COSATU and the alliance to reduce the toll fee, but we want action.

Source : Congress of South African Trade Unions