SHAIN GERMANER

If trends of the past three years are anything to go by, South Africans will be paying more than R11 for a litre of petrol from April – the most that fuel has ever cost.

Senior Econometrix economist Tony Twine and Gary Ronald of the Automobile Association predict that as the past two annual Budget speeches announced a steady increase in the fuel levy, it would be surprising if today’s speech did not follow suit with the fuel and Road Accident Fund (RAF) levies.

Last year, the fuel and RAF levies had a combined increase of 27 cents a litre and, according to Ronald and Twine, the taxes are likely to increase by a similar amount this year.

Ronald estimated that the average middle-income family used about 2 000 litres of petrol per vehicle a year, or about 167 litres a month.

Currently, unleaded petrol 95 costs R10.95, unleaded 93 costs R10.77 and diesel costs R10.26 per litre.

The fuel levy for each litre is about R1.77 for petrol and R1.62 for diesel, with the RAF taking another 80 cents per litre.

Each month, the average South African pays tax of R296.42 for their petrol cars and R271.37 for their diesel cars. An estimated jump of 30 cents will raise those figures to R346.52 and R321.47.