E-Toll event fails as about 40 people turn up

Electronic tolling has caused a bit of havoc lately in our country in the past few months, resulting to a massive strike formed by unions who call on the banning of the e-tolling systems. the strike that has took place has caused the country billions of rands due to the fact that during a strike everything comes to a standstill meaning business do not run like on normal basis because most workers go out to support the strikes that take place.

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The first strike on the electronic tolling was organised by the union COSATU and it took place on the 7th of March 2012, its turn out was positive and the strike was successful as thousands and thousands of people from all over the country participated. Unfortunately the same cannot be said about the second protest organised by the Freedom Front Plus (FF+), the National Taxpayers Union, the South African Caravan Association and various motobike club. This event was to take place on Thursday 29 March 2012 at the Ultra City on the N1 highway between Pretoria and Johannesburg, this event failed because:

• it was not well organised
• a proper research was not conducted
• lastly its because only about 40 supporters turned up for the protest.

Protersters voicing their views

In public relations I have learned that in order for an event to be successful the company or an organisation should plan the event, conduct a good research and do some sort of advertising which is a way for an organisation to be able to communicate with their target audiences. Had the organisers done these three things I am pretty sure that the protest would have not failed as it did. the Joburg metro police clearly said the protest was illegal, this is because no one had communicated with them before the day of the strike.

Leader of Freedom Front Plus Pieter Mulder

Freedom Front Plus spokesman Anton Alberts on Thursday morning said the idea behind the protest was to make sure that a "certain section" of the population was heard, not just the Congress of South Africa Trade Unions, he added that there are certain organisations and sections of the population who are still unhappy with the tolling system and they also want to encourage other sections of the population, other political parties and civil organisations to come out and hold various actions on their own.


Besides the protest failing the only positive incident that erupted was the public relations stunt that was pulled by "Mal Jan " van der Merwe who is the stuntman at the Jacaranda 94.2 FM breakfast show, he decided to show up with his camel at the march. The camel had attracted considerably more attention than Freedom Front Plus stikers which were encouraging R15 SMS donation to their cause

Mal Jan van der Merwer and his camel

Hopefull the organisers of this event will learn to organise properly in order for their event to succeed next time.