The top CEO who gave up his job to take on the South African government – and won

Wayne Duvenage, the co-founder and CEO of the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), took on the South African government and won.

Duvenage was born in Harare, Zimbabwe, in 1960, but his parents moved to South Africa when he was young.

After school, he attended the University of KwaZulu-Natal, from which he graduated with a degree in industrial psychology.

His first job was as a dispatcher for Avis car rentals at Durban Airport, where he worked shifts preparing and cleaning cars with a team of drivers.

He initially thought of this job as a gap-filler while scouring the market for a role in the personnel recruitment industry.

“However, Avis was an extremely dynamic company with a lot of opportunities for growth and development in the space of business leadership,” he said.

Over the next 10 years, he took up various operational management positions within the company and became head of Avis’ operations in Southern Africa in 1996.

In 2005, he was appointed to Avis chief executive. During his tenure as CEO, Duvenage served on the boards of Savrala and Tourism Marketing South Africa.

Around August 2010, the industry became aware of Sanral’s decision to introduce the e-tolling system and studied its implications.

“From an industry perspective, our research showed the scheme to be irrational, with all the hallmarks of gross inefficiency and potential corruption,” Duvenage said.

The Car Rental and Leasing Industry Association (Savrala) decided to challenge the e-toll decision in court, and Duvenage acted as chair of the initiative.

This initiative was called the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance (Outa), which became the vehicle through which Duvenage would address corruption.

Outa demanded so much of his time that he stepped down as Avis CEO to focus full-time on the Opposition to Urban Tolling Alliance’s work.

Taking on e-tolls and winning

Outa lost its case calling for the e-toll scheme to be declared unlawful in the Supreme Court of Appeal in 2013.

However, even though it respected the court’s decision on legality, it maintained that the e-toll scheme was ethically and practically questionable.

Outa continued the fight and, in 2015, launched a crowdfunding scheme through the introduction of a monthly debit order.

“This helped us to fulfil our promise to the public that we would defend every e-toll summons the public received from Sanral for non-payment,” he said.

The organisation transformed, hiring a team at market-related salaries to become an effective civil intervention organisation.

Outa launched many campaigns against e-tolls. “We took Sanral on with over 2,000 summonses mandated to us to defend,” he said.

Sanral abandoned its summons strategy in March 2019, and fewer and fewer people supported the Gauteng e-toll system. It was on borrowed time.

On 11 April 2024, the government closed the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project (GFIP) e-toll scheme and subsequently withdrew the e-toll declarations.

“The failure of the e-toll scheme was evident within months of its launch, yet the government took more than a decade to formally acknowledge reality,” Outa said.

Although the government discontinued e-tolls in 2024, it left motorists facing uncertainty over historical debt and legal action.

On Sunday, 7 June 2026, the Department of Transport announced that all outstanding and unpaid historical GFIP e-toll debt owed by road users will be written off.

This followed a cabinet decision to approve SANRAL’s implementation of the closure of the Gauteng Freeway Improvement Project’s historical debt.

“Outstanding and unpaid historical e-toll debt owed by road users will be written off. SANRAL will not pursue any further collection of historical GFIP e-toll debt,” it said.

This was the final victory for Duvenage and Outa in a 14-year battle with the government over its controversial, potentially corrupt e-toll system.

Duvenage showed that it was possible to take on the government and win, and he became the face of the fight against corruption in South Africa.

Wayne Duvenage thanks Outa’s supporters

Wayne Duvenage said the latest development was the final chapter of the submission by the government on the e-toll saga.

“I want to personally thank the millions of motorists who joined Outa in this campaign from Day 1, when we launched our legal challenge in April 2012,” he said.

“With the courts unable to stop Sanral from proceeding with their ill-conceived scheme, our fight transitioned to a powerful civil disobedience campaign.”

He said that Outa, which later changed its name to the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse, stood against an irrational, expensive, and unnecessary decision.

“At nearly three times the world average administration costs, we would have seen billions of rands flow to an offshore company,” he said.

“It would have also seen Sanral earn around 30% of their revenue, from 1% of the tarmac that they manage in South Africa.”

“Bad law needs to be defied in the manner that Gauteng motorists dealt with the e-toll saga. Civil disobedience.”

“It would have seen many undeserving people, companies, and our government benefiting from a very deceitful scheme.”

He added that the e-toll scheme had corruption, along with a number of red flags of failure, written all over it, before it even started.

“This matter gave the people of South Africa a taste of their power and displayed their ability to force the government to reverse a bad decision,” he said.

“We salute you, and we thank you for your continued support for OUTA since 2016, when we transitioned into a broader corruption-fighting machine,” he said.

Outa has saved this country from hundreds of billions of rands being wasted or stolen over the past 14 years.

“You have stayed with us. You are the active citizens and companies that make a difference in South Africa,” he said.

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Early campaign against Gauteng e-tolls

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