E-Toll Roads: Analysing a Case of Collective Moral Disengagement in an e-Government Project

Abstract

There has been little research that examines how public managers involved in e-government decisionmaking can sometimes negatively affect the welfare of citizens and waste public resources. case study analyses collective moral disengagement mechanisms used by leaders and their subordinates to justify a controversial urban e-tolling project in South Africa. Using deductive content analysis, legal documents and public records were coded for modes of moral disengagement. results show that public managers morally exonerated their decision: by endowing it with socially worthy purposes; euphemistic labelling; displacing and diffusing responsibility; downplaying negative consequences; making favourable comparisons; and disparaging and blaming opposing groups. Enhancements to existing governance frameworks and broader societal safeguards are recommended to prevent moral transgressions and improve e-government decisionmaking. Specific tactics for reputation rebuilding are also recommended when the publicity of alleged moral transgressions is high. Further research is needed to investigate how e-government leaders and broader social actors can engage public managers to enhance transparency and accountability. CASE STUDY CONTEXT: E TOLLING PROJECT IN LIMBO research is conducted on one of South Africa's most controversial e-government projects - the Gauteng Open Road Tolling (ORT) project. project, initiated in 2006, has sparked a challenge from various groups in civil society and has been embroiled in a lengthy legal battle. South African National Roads Agency Limited (SANRAL), a state-owned enterprise, is primarily responsible for the financing, development, maintenance and rehabilitation of South Africa's 16 170km national road network. Its activities include non-toll and toll operations. Toll roads are self-funding based on the user-pays principle. SANRAL has used two types of tolling: traditional toll collection at a toll plaza; and electronic toll collection (ETC), where either credit cards or an electronic transponder system (e-tag) identifies the vehicle and allows it to pass. Most of the conventional tolls are on newly built routes for long distance destinations, mainly found on regional roads. There has been increasing interest in private toll roads as an alternative way of meeting highway needs. SANRAL has partnered with private entities to design and build the facilities and manage these operations. controversial ORT project intends to use overhead gantries approximately every 10km along Gauteng's existing urban highway system to collect toll fees electronically. gantries are fitted with electronic readers that recognise vehicle identifiers such as e-tags or vehicle number plates - and are set to automatically deduct toll fees from a road user's registered e-toll account. Users would be serviced by a complex of service channels including a call centre and website, e-toll kiosks and e-tag outlets at various shopping malls, and e-toll customer-service centres situated along the freeway network. SANRAL has also procured a central account management and clearing system, and established a violations processing centre as part of the operation. Lack of transparency has been the hallmark of the e-toll project. Public managers voiced their reluctance to share vital information. For instance SANRAL initially refused to disclose details of the Electronic Toll Collection Joint Venture: The information requested by Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (OUTA) is and remains the intellectual property of third party organisations (SAPA, 2012a).The decision to use a foreign company instead of stimulating the development of local technology was also questionable. Headquartered in Austria, the e-tolling and traffic solutions firm and the largest shareholder in the e-tolling consortium, reported in the 2010/11 financial year that its road solutions projects segment, under which e-tolling falls, grew 247% year-on-year (Rasool, 2012). According to the CEO: This positive development resulted largely from electronic toll collection system implementations in SA and Poland (ibid). Opponents claim that the Government Employee Pension Fund (GEPF) holding R15.7 billion in SANRAL bonds was another reason for the lack of transparency (ibid). Some critics argued that this conflict of interest was the real reason government insisted on pursuing the project, despite its unfeasibility and despite it facing public resistance (ibid).