{"id":10462,"date":"2012-05-03T20:32:24","date_gmt":"2012-05-03T18:32:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/05\/s-africa-building-plans-hit-pothole-in-toll-road-debacle\/"},"modified":"2012-05-03T20:32:24","modified_gmt":"2012-05-03T18:32:24","slug":"s-africa-building-plans-hit-pothole-in-toll-road-debacle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/s-africa-building-plans-hit-pothole-in-toll-road-debacle\/","title":{"rendered":"S.Africa building plans hit pothole in toll road debacle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Govt may have to widen expected 2012\/13 budget shortfall<span><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>* Toll troubles affect other state firms borrowing plans<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>By Xola Potelwa<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>JOHANNESBURG, May 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa wanted the<br \/>\nusers of the heavily travelled highways in Johannesburg to start<br \/>\nthis week paying for road improvements through tolls.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Instead, it may end up with a nearly $3 billion bill and<br \/>\nworries about financing for other major public works projects<br \/>\nmeant to boost the economy after a bruising political and legal<br \/>\nbattle put the toll plans on hold indefinitely.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The ruling African National Congress (ANC) faced almost<br \/>\nunprecedented protests from an unlikely coalition of labour,<br \/>\nbusiness, economists and drivers who said the tolls were too<br \/>\ncostly, would place too much of a burden on the poor and stoke<br \/>\ninflation in Africa&#8217;s largest economy.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Without tolls rolling in, the state road agency named SANRAL<br \/>\nmay be forced to default on at least 20 billion rand ($2.58<br \/>\nbillion) of debt unless the Finance Ministry steps in to pick up<br \/>\nthe tab. The bill for the highway upgrade is more than what the<br \/>\ncountry pays each year to run its court system.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If the government had to step up and meet its guarantee,<br \/>\nbudget reserves would be fully consumed at the start of the<br \/>\nfiscal year,&#8221; said Peter Attard Montalto, an emerging markets<br \/>\neconomist at Nomura, adding this could add another 0.6<br \/>\npercentage points to the deficit.<\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n<p>Other state agencies planned to use SANRAL&#8217;s model to tap<br \/>\ninto bond markets to fund 300 billion rand in infrastructure<br \/>\nspending called for by President Jacob Zuma to grow the economy<br \/>\nand ease its chronic unemployment problems.<br \/>\n\u00a0 <span class=\"label\"><strong>Continued&#8230;<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p><span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>* Govt may have to widen expected 2012\/13 budget shortfall * Toll troubles affect other state firms borrowing plans By Xola Potelwa JOHANNESBURG, May 3 (Reuters) &#8211; South Africa wanted the users of the heavily travelled highways in Johannesburg to start this week paying for road improvements through tolls. Instead, it may end up with [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[830,2370,183],"class_list":{"0":"post-10462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-news","8":"tag-reuters","9":"tag-south-africa-2","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10462\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}