Fighting to lower fuel levies
OPPOSITION parties and civil society groups joined forces yesterday to exert pressure on the government to reduce the petrol price by R1 a litre.
While the opposition parties were unanimous in their call for the reduction of petrol prices, IFP leader Mangosuthu Buthelezi vowed to make the suspension of fuel levies a “key policy issue” in next year’s all important general elections.
Yesterday, the ACDP, Cope, Freedom Front Plus and Forum For Service Delivery came out to support the campaign, which was initially lodged by the DA, Organisation Undoing Tax Abuse (Outa), National Taxi Alliance (NTA) and the SA National Taxi Council (Santaco) last week.
Their supporters marched to the National Treasury headquarters in Church Street, Pretoria, carrying posters depicting their concerns about the increasing petrol prices – and an increase due to happen today .
The petrol increase today happens as President Cyril Ramaphosa’s three-day cabinet lekgotla also kicks off today.
At the march, Outa’s Ben Theron asked Ramaphosa to speed up the process to return R100 billion which was allegedly stolen by the Guptas and siphoned to Dubai. Theron said the R100bn could be used to ease the petrol prices that are reportedly high compared to neighbouring countries Lesotho, Swaziland and Botswana.
ACDP leader Reverend Kenneth Meshoe told the marchers petrol in Botswana cost R10.9/litre, Lesotho R11.05 and Swaziland R12.78, but in South Africa – which supplies its neighbours with petrol – it cost R15.80/litre.
DA leader Mmusi Maimane said in the past year alone, “the tax war” on ordinary citizens had made life extremely hard for those who could least afford it. “But the one increase that has really hit poor people in the pocket has been the fuel price because this affects the two things people spend the biggest part of their income on: transport and food,” Maimane said.
He said this year alone, there had been four fuel price increases in four consecutive months, with a fifth coming into effect today – and there would, no doubt, be more in the near future.
“Every cent of every increase finds its way into taxi fares, bus fares and the price of food transported on our roads. Poor people, already stretched to breaking point, must simply pay more. And the truth is they just can’t any longer,” Maimane said.
He said a large chunk of the fuel price – in fact a full third of it – was made up of two government taxes: the General Fuel Levy and the Road Accident Fund Levy.
“For every litre of petrol you buy, R5.30 goes towards these two taxes.
“And when you look at all the factors that make up our fuel price, it is these two taxes that have increased far more than anything else in recent years.
“Over the past 10 years, the General Fuel Levy has almost doubled and the RAF levy has more than tripled,” he said.
In their memorandum, the parties have called for an urgent debate in Parliament to consider the current structure of the two levies and how these could be altered to offer relief to ordinary South Africans – by placing the RAF under independent and external administration in order to eradicate corruption, install competent and independent leadership and begin the process of tackling its R160bn backlog in unpaid claims.
Addressing the media in Durban yesterday, Buthelezi said his party would mobilise public protests to force the government to remove the fuel levies in order to bring relief to the public from exorbitant fuel prices.
“We have had overwhelming response to the fight to suspend fuel levies, which had prompted the IFP to call for a national day of action,” he said.
He invited members of the public to participate in countrywide protests against the levy on August 30.
National Treasury officials told the protesters they would hand over their memorandum to Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene.
The Treasury said it could not comment, as the holistic response to fuel price increases would come from the Cabinet, which would discuss the findings of the interministerial committee that Ramaphosa had tasked with looking into the fuel price increases and how their effects could be mitigated.