I was quite amused to hear the radio adverts, paid for by the government, about the new e-toll rates.  It is all about how government has listened to the people and has now slashed the rates people must pay.  I don’t think they listened properly to what people were saying, because nobody asked to pay less but they asked for no e-tolls at all.  

The advert is pure propaganda but like most propaganda it may work together with the corny ending about how everyone has now made South Africa a better place.  At the end of the day, all they need to do is to break the back of the majority, get the majority to pay and then prosecute the minority and they will have their system back in place.  After that, they can slowly increase the tariffs each year back to where they were.  It will be interesting to see if it works and judging by the lack of screaming and shouting, I suspect that it may well work now.  Of course, the real devilishness is their no renewing of your licence without paying your e-tolls up to date – and I think that is going to force compliance more than anything else, because otherwise, although you will not get pulled over for your unpaid e-tolls on a regular basis, you are going to get fined all the time for your licence – something that traffic police always check for.