- Soaring petrol prices took people to the streets. Concerned Citizens of South Africa wants prices halved within 14 days or a three-day shutdown.
- Cosatu wants government to release R10-billion for fuel relief. It supports protests against fuel prices but has no position on the shutdown.
Soaring fuel prices pushed people onto the streets of Cape Town, Durban and Pretoria on Monday, when a group called Concerned Citizens of South Africa held a shutdown and pickets over record petrol prices.
The group gave the government 14 days to halve fuel prices. If the government does not respond, it says it will call a three-day national shutdown, when people stop driving and buying fuel.
South Africans are paying record prices. The price of 95 petrol went up to R30.25 a litre inland this month. At the coast, it is R29.38. The October increase of R3.33 a litre adds R166.50 to a 50-litre tank.
The group wants a 50% cut in fuel prices, which would bring petrol to about R15 a litre. It also wants lower fuel taxes and levies, and a review of how the government prices fuel.
Group spokesperson Siphiwe Mpungose said: “We are saying R15 is what we are prepared to pay.”
If the government does not respond within 14 days, which is by Monday, 2 November, the group says it will ask unions, truck associations and the South African National Taxi Council (Santaco) to stop driving, and to stop buying fuel, for three days. At the time of writing, none of those groups had said publicly that they will join.
The Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources blames the October increase on expensive international oil, higher shipping costs and global supply problems.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) also wants government to act. Its parliamentary coordinator, Matthew Parks, told CapeTalk on Monday that government should use the R10-billion that the Second Special Appropriation Bill would give the Central Energy Fund, to cushion households and businesses through November and December. Parliament has not yet passed the Bill.
“We would hope that the Minister would announce something with regard to the fuel price,” Parks said.
Cosatu has not taken a position on the shutdown. Parks said the federation supports protests against high fuel prices, but that it had only just heard of this one and has no view on it.
People now wait to see what Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says in his mini-budget on Wednesday, 21 October. Cosatu hopes he will announce fuel relief, but there is no promise that prices will drop.
