South Africa’s poor households bear the brunt of high food prices and housing costs while the ANC uses state resources for the benefit of the party, charged the EFF in response to fuel price hikes that came into effect on Tuesday midnight.
“It is despicable that the government announces such drastic fuel increases, as well as electricity rate increases and yet denies workers an increase that is equal to or above inflation,” the red berets said in a statement on Wednesday.
The EFF, which threatened a national shutdown until the price of petrol is reduced, said the National Treasury and energy minister ought to introduce immediate measures to bring the price of fuel down.
The EFF’s call received support from the DA, which said government should scrap the general fuel levy to ease the impact of record high fuel price increases.
“That’s about R3.93c per litre. The reason why we say scrap that [fuel levy] completely is because the general fuel levy goes into the national revenue fund and gets used to fund anything that government does, from buying a flagpole for R22-million to a R50-million donation to Cuba,” said John Mileham, DA’s spokesperson on mineral resources and energy.
The official opposition party added that it will hold demonstrations in different provinces to protest against the fuel hikes.
On Tuesday, the government extended the reduction in the general fuel levy by a further two months, bringing reprieve to already struggling consumers. The expectation was for the fuel price to hit record highs of almost R4 per litre from Wednesday.
The R1.50 relief will now be extended from June 1 until July 6 2022, followed by a downward adjustment for the second month to 75c per litre from July 7 to August.
Petrol rose by up to R2.43 per litre on Tuesday midnight, while diesel shot up by up to R1.10 per litre.
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