- Petrol 95 rose R3.33 a litre on 7 October, pushing the price in Gauteng past R30 for the first time.
- Soweto driver Morgan Mnisi plans to stop giving lifts, while Cosatu asks the government to use R10 billion for fuel relief.
Petrol has gone past R30 a litre in Gauteng for the first time. The price of 95 unleaded rose by R3.33 on Wednesday, 7 October, from R26.92 to R30.25 a litre.
Morgan Mnisi, a professional DJ from Soweto, drives between Soweto and Sandton. He spends about R400 on petrol for every two to three trips, which adds up to around R1,600 a month.
“I haven’t reduced my trips as yet because the increase has just happened but I’m planning on stopping to give people lifts,” Mnisi said.
He depends only on DJ gigs for his income and says he earns very little. If he has to spend even more on transport, he says he will have to cut down on groceries. He said an extra R1,000 a month would make a big difference.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) wants the government to use R10 billion proposed in the Second Special Appropriation Bill for fuel price relief. It says the money could go through the Central Energy Fund’s Equalisation Fund to ease the pressure.
Cosatu says workers can spend up to 30% of their wages on transport, and taxi and bus fares will go up. It also says petrol has gone up by more than 25% and diesel by more than 50% in the past few months.
The union wants the government to treat the R10 billion as a matter of extreme urgency.
The National Treasury told Scrolla.Africa it is in a closed period and cannot comment on Cosatu’s call for the R10 billion.
