Energy Dept admits to making mistake with petrol price increase figure
It now says that petrol has actually gone up 75 cents a liter and not the 81 cents it announced on Monday.
JOHANNESBURG - The Energy Department said that it made a mistake on Monday when it announced that petrol was going up 81 cents a litre from 1 December.
It now says that petrol has actually gone up 75 cents a liter.
The department said that this was the first time that it had released the wrong price and it has apologised for any inconvenience.
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Meanwhile, the Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa) has written to Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, calling for a halt to the annual increase in the fuel levies.
The levy increases are announced in February every year in the budget.
In his letter, Outa CEO Wayne Duvenage said that while his organisation understood that South Africa was a cash-strapped nation, we could no longer afford to burden society with higher taxes and levies applied to the price of fuel.
He pointed out that a decade ago, the average price for Brent crude was 114 dollars per barrel, which is 36% higher than it is today.
Fortunately, at that time, our currency was a lot stronger at R7.41 cents to the US dollar, compared to last month's average of R15.85.
It is therefore a combination of our weak currency and the ongoing increases to levies, which are now collectively R5.59 per litre higher than they were a decade ago, which gives us our highest price for petrol today.
Duvenage is warning that another hike in fuel taxes in 2022 would be a slap in the face of overstretched citizens and would add more burden to everyone in the country.
