The government is considering introducing an appropriations bill to give Sanral a cash injection to allow it to service its R20bn debt, deputy president Kgalema Motlanthe said on Thursday.

Failure to meet Sanral’s debt repayments while the legal battle over e-tolling in Gauteng continued would have dire consequences for the roads agency and the country, he said.

“Government has to look at other ways of servicing that debt, which means taking away money from other allocation [and] hence the consideration of introducing this special bill to enable government to continue keeping Sanral in a healthy state of servicing the debt.”

He sidestepped a question on how much money would be allocated to Sanral. — Sapa