Cape Town - A group calling itself People Against Petrol and Paraffin Price Increases (Papppi) is planning a march through Cape Town on Monday, in a bid to get the government to reduce soaring fuel prices.
"The organisation which has been at the forefront of campaigning for petrol, diesel and Parafin PRICES to drop, has called in South Africans to heed its call for a NATIONAL day of protests on Monday, 13 August August 2018," the group said in a statement.
"Our fuel costs more today than ever before and we are glad that the majority of South Africans are supporting our calls to reduce prices. High fuel prices affect all of us, the poor in particular, through increases in food and transport costs. Our wages and salaries are not going up and life will become unbearable for many people," Papppi national convenor Visvin Reddy said.
"STATSA has released a report which indicates that over 55% of South Africans live below the poverty line. It is simply incomprehensible that our government would increase the cost of fuel without considering options that will bring fuel costs down.
"As PAPPPI, we were the first to highlight the fact that 38% in fuel costs go to fuel taxes and levies. We pay R1.93 per litre towards the Road Accident Fund, which is riddled with corruption and mismanagement. The fund is under investigation by the Hawks and the entire board of the RAF was removed," Reddy said.
South Africa was a fuel producing country, Papppi said, and thus the petrol price should not depend on international factors.
"We believe that the price of fuel in this country can be reduced to less than R10 a litre. The government says that fuel price increases are as a result of the fluctuations in the cost of international crude oil and the value of the rand. This is not entirely true.
"South Africa is a fuel producing country. Taxpayers contributed towards the development of SASOL which is a local producer of fuel using coal-to-liquid technology. The price of SASOL fuels is not dependent on international factors. The government regulates the price of petrol and diesel and as a result, SASOL is making massive profits.
"The financial statements of SASOL reveal that the company makes a profit of R100million a day and supplies a third of the countries fuel needs. SASOL is over producing and is able to sell fuel to neighbouring countries like Botswana where the fuel is sold for less than R10 a litre," Reddy said.
The group was calling on the government to deregulate the price of fuel so that Sasol could sell it at R8 per litre.
@CapeTimesSA