SANRAL Commences Sending Final Demands & Issuing Summonses

It has come to the attention of Justice Project South Africa that the SANRAL Violations Processing Centre (VPC) has started sending out emails stating that “A Final Demand has been issued in regard to your e-toll Violations Processing Centre (VPC) Account” and “A summons has been issued”.

The email messages were received by a company that allegedly has an outstanding e-tolls bill with SANRAL, in two separate emails sent on 2 May 2014, within seconds of one another.

First email received at 06:04 on Friday 2 May 2014:

Second email received at 06:04 on Friday 2 May 2014:

It is not clear at this stage whether the summons referred to in the email is a civil or criminal summons as neither the Final Demand, nor the summons has as yet been received by the company in question.

What is clear however is that SANRAL’s VPC doesn’t understand the concept of the term “pre-legal”, given the fact that they have referred to a summons already having been issued and usually “pre-legal” communications precede the issue of a summons, which escalates the matter to the status of being a live legal issue.  Additionally, in order for a summons to be issued, a court date would be required so that it may appear on the summons.

In light of the “processes” described by spokespeople for SANRAL, it is somewhat surprising that a Final Demand would have been issued and seconds later, a summons would have been issued.  These actions deviate dramatically from the “processes” that have been repeatedly described by SANRAL representatives.

Howard Dembovsky

National Chairman – Justice Project South Africa (NPC)