There are many reasons why this new toll booth should be opposed by all concerned including the fact that so many of the poorest of the poor live in that area, and a daily commute to Durban and back is likely to cost them R16 a day.

Other than the surface streets and the R102 there is no real alternate route for those not wishing to use the new toll booth. The quality of these surface streets and the R102, I will refer to them as alternate routes for the purpose of clarity, are going to suffer increasing vehicle running costs.

The vehicles using these alternative routes will not just be cars but will include trucks; one only has to look at the M13 to see what happens to the road when large trucks avoiding the toll booth use these alternate routes that were not designed for these heavy vehicles.

There is a good possibility that this will adversely affect property values and may even lead to the areas along these routes being rezoned commercial.

Damage to road infrastructure on alternative routes, particularly the R102, is expected to increase by about R3.2-million by 2020. There is also an estimate that the potential increase in accidents on the alternate routes could amount from R360 million to R720 million between the years 2010 and 2020.

If you assume that 30% of the vehicles using the N2 do so for business purposes, that means that the toll fees alone will cost businesses R130,000 – R165,000 daily, and who do you think is ultimately going to pay that cost?…you and me, the consumer.

One report estimates that residents and workers will lose between R96-million and R102-million in disposable income. If households are shifting their spending to pay for these tolls it is definitely going to affect the economy.

As a footnote, I can’t help but wonder how the ANC feels now that the vast majority, including them, are opposed to this toll booth but SANRAL seems to be just trying to steam roll it through irrespective of the opposition. It reminds me a little of the street renaming where the majority that opposed the renaming were ignored and the ANC in council just steam rolled it through.

This is a hospital that serves the poorest of the poor who suffer in silence and it is time someone spoke up for those people. We should demand an investigation into why the hospital has been allowed to deteriorate into such a state and those at the provincial level, this is a provincial hospital, who allowed this to occur should be terminated from their positions with immediate effect, whether they are politicians or bureaucrats. There needs to be consequences for this type of neglect. They are obviously not doing their jobs because if there was adequate oversight this would not be happening. These officials at provincial level need to get out of their offices and start taking care of the people who elected them to do just that.

The same could be said for any number of government hospitals in KwaZulu-Natal including Addington Hospital on Durban’s beach front.

The only problem I have with the bill is that it needs to include all the 200 + councillors in the city council. They should not be permitted to have jobs and businesses outside of their council work and it should also state that individuals contesting an election for ward councilor should be required by law to live in the ward they are contesting, if that person is so interested in that ward that they want to represent it in the council, then that ward should be good enough for them to live in. Obviously this won’t apply to PR councilors who are deployed to any ward at the digression of their party.

I urge Minister Sicelo Shiceha to move on this at the earliest opportunity so as to have it in place before the 2011 Municipal elections

When interviewed by the media about the reason for the strike the taxi union spokesperson said “the new bus rapid transit system is faster and cheaper than taxis and it is going to put us out of business”. Now, me and every other right thinking person’s jaw dropped at hearing this statement, because is that not the idea, more competition is better for the consumer and encourages everyone else in the industry to do a better job more cost effectively. Well I guess that is how it works in the rest of the world but not here.

Another example is that fact that the country lost 170,000 jobs in the first 3 months of this year and one quarter of the economically active adults are out of work. Do the unions and others not understand that in these economic times, by them demanding double digit pay increases is going to do nothing but put more of them out of work.

I think that if they do not want to be stopped by the police, ticketed and maybe have their taxi impounded they need to police themselves a little more. The taxi owners should be more aware as to who they are hiring to drive their taxis, they should be required to keep current records including residential address on their drivers. The passengers should refuse to ride in a taxi if they were previously in the taxi with the same driver and the taxi was impounded and they were left at the road side.

We cannot as a society give in to blackmail in the form of strikes over the World Cup period etc from criminals. Yes they are criminals, not all of them but the vast majority, on any given day you can see a number of them driving through red lights, driving in the emergency lane and my favorite just stopping anywhere they please to drop off or pick up passengers, those are all crimes and they do not care because they have absolutely no intention of paying any fine they may receive. I have even seen some of these infractions committees blatantly in the presence of Metro Police officers with absolutely no repercussions.

The financial woes of the SABC are a prime example of why government should get out of the business of doing business. The SABC is now asking for a R2 billion “short term” bail out and R6 billion over 5 years.

Considering that officials continue to travel first class, board members hold meetings at five-star hotels, awarding senior executives bonuses in December and sanctioning travel for executives, like Thelma Melk, the company secretary who is in Los Angeles on a content purchasing visit, her sixth overseas trip since October; this is an insane request.

If the SABC cannot survive on selling commercials and that ridiculous TV license we are forced to pay for; they should go out of business.

Why do MNet and the other broadcasters have the same financial problems? maybe it is because they are not government subsidized.

The same goes with the bloated, top heavy, spend happy SAA and Eskom.

They should all be sold to private concerns, and the citizens of this country would get much better service.

This is a despicable act of elitism by lawmakers breaking the laws they expect the rest of us to follow. I say name and shame them and those that have active warrants for arrest should be immediately arrested where ever they are found even at their municipal offices just as we would. Elected officials should be held to a higher standard.