The ANC tries to escape accountability for fuel increase while they are to blame

5 July 2018

Today the petrol price reached a record high, setting people back R16.02 per litre. A full 33 % of this goes directly to the ANC government. This while South Africans are cash-strapped and feeling the pressure of a failing economy.

The ANC’s statement calling on the ANC government to intervene to help lessen the impact of the fifth petrol price increase this year is disingenuous as they are to blame for this crisis.

The ANC government has mismanaged the economy and allowed corruption to erode public money which has landed us in this situation. Instead of playing politics by pleading with themselves to rectify the very mess they have created, they must act immediately to bring relief to ordinary people.

The DA therefore challenges the ANC government, to bring the petrol price below R15, by reducing the Road Accident Fuel levy and the general fuel levy by 20%.

This will reduce the fuel price to below R 15 per litre and bring much-needed relief to South Africans who are under extreme pressure with the cost of living spiralling out of control.

The ANC government has stated that there is nothing that it can do about the rampant petrol price increases, however considering that 33% of the petrol price consists of levies and duties, the government can indeed reduce fuel prices.

Scraping the levies and duties on petrol completely is not feasible, but a 20% reduction in the RAF and general fuel levy is more than plausible.

The DA has already called for a debate of national importance in Parliament to debate the structure of how petrol is taxed in South Africa.

Spiralling cost of living and the fact that South Africa’s neighbouring countries pay less for petrol than South Africa, highlights the importance of this debate. Differences between the price of petrol in South Africa and its neighbours come down to the taxes the South African government change on petrol.

South Africans have been made to pay for the ANC’s mismanagement of  the economy for too long. VAT and petrol price increases means that ordinary people are increasingly unable to put food on the table and it has now become that much harder to pay for transport to look for work.

It does not have to be this way and the DA will continue to fight for ordinary South Africans who are burdened with increasing cost of living because of the ANC.

Issued by Manny de Freitas, DA Shadow Minister of Transport, 5 July 2018