Record fuel prices undermine South Africans’ freedom to move

Oil prices and the rand explain October’s record fuel price increase. They do not explain why the government keeps sending the bill to the people who can least afford to move.

On 7 October 2026, South Africans paid more for a litre of petrol and diesel than ever before. Early data from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) already signals more to come: up to R4.58 a litre more for 95 unleaded in November and up to R2.91 per litre for wholesale diesel.

Read:
SA’s fuel import bill surges to highest level since 1994
More panic buying looms as record fuel prices set to kick in

October is Transport Month. We are marking it by paying more to get around than at any point in our history.

We tend to file fuel prices under motoring. That is the wrong drawer.

Mobility is about more than transport; it is the freedom to change your circumstances – to get to work, look for work or take a child to school.

Section 21 of the Constitution gives everyone the right to freedom of movement. It says you are free to move, but fuel prices decide whether you can afford to.

A right you cannot afford to use is a right on paper.

The poorest pay the price

The people who feel this first never touch a petrol pump.

Some workers already spend as much as 40% of their pay getting to and from work. When fuel goes up, taxi, bus and e-hailing operators pass it on through fares, and those passengers have nothing left to cut.

A young woman looking for work pays a taxi fare to attend an interview before she has a wage to pay it from. When fares rise, she applies for fewer jobs.

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That is how a fuel price becomes an unemployment number.

Parents who pay for scholar transport will pay more. Some will not manage, leaving their children to walk to school.

On a 50-litre tank of 95, November’s projected increase alone adds about R229 to every fill-up.

Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop expects it to push consumer inflation above 5%. That could mean a longer wait for interest rate relief on cars and bonds.

Diesel costs drive up prices

More than 80% of South Africa’s freight moves by road.

According to Bishop, diesel prices have doubled this year, rising from R17 a litre in January to more than R34 – the biggest annual increase on record.

Read: Triple blow: R30.25 petrol, interest rates and medical aid hikes hit SA

I come from banking, so let me put it in the terms a board would appreciate.

Take a business running 50 delivery vehicles, each using 400 litres of diesel a month. In January, that fleet’s fuel bill was about R340 000 a month. Today it is at least R680 000. November’s projected increase adds another R51 000 a month.

That money comes out of wages, investment or prices.

In the end the customer pays it, and so does the next job that never gets created.

Government can cut fuel costs

Oil is trading above $100 a barrel, against $65 before the Iran war, and no minister can change that.

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About 50c a litre of November’s projected petrol increase comes from the weaker rand alone. The rand is the market’s verdict on how the country is run. Motorists pay that verdict at the pump.

More than 25% of your fuel price today is taxes. We don’t mind the government collecting fuel taxes. But downstream, we don’t see the benefit.

Read: Same old oil, much bigger hit on the pocket

In April, National Treasury cut fuel levies by R3 a litre, costing more than R17 billion. In September, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana warned that any further relief would have to be recovered elsewhere in the budget.

For years, motorists have been that “elsewhere”.

The Automobile Association (AA) maintains that government can afford a further R3-a-litre cut to fuel taxes such as the general fuel levy, and that it would materially reduce the inflationary impact of these increases. Recover it from waste.

Year after year, government has found billions for failing state companies and departments.

It can find the money to keep South Africa moving.

A test for the CEF’s new chief

Dr Tshepo Mokoka took over as group chief executive of the CEF in July. He did not start a war or weaken the rand, and the CEF does not set fuel prices; it publishes the data used to calculate them.

But it oversees the state’s fuel assets, including PetroSA and the Strategic Fuel Fund, and on his watch fuel has reached record prices while his own organisation’s numbers warn of worse.

Read: SA concerned over ‘insufficient’ strategic oil stocks

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I wrote last month about PetroSA. The group Dr Mokoka now leads sold off strategic crude stocks in 2015 and has left the Mossel Bay refinery largely idle since 2020.

A country without a fuel buffer is exposed to every shock.

If the CEF’s answer to record prices is business as usual, it does not augur well for the rest of his tenure.

Here is a prediction I would be glad to get wrong: if November’s adjustment lands anywhere near the CEF’s early numbers and fuel taxes are left alone, taxi fares will rise before schools reopen in January.

Four ways to ease the pressure

First, National Treasury should cut fuel taxes, such as the general fuel levy, by a further R3 a litre before the November adjustment, and cover the shortfall by cutting waste rather than borrowing.

Second, the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources should open the basic fuel price formula to public review, starting with why fuel refined locally is priced as though it were imported.

Third, the CEF should publish, within 90 days, a plan to rebuild the strategic fuel reserve and settle PetroSA’s future.

Fourth, employers should not wait for government. Review transport allowances now.

Where the work allows, give people one remote working day a week. For a five-day commuter, that cuts the weekly transport bill by a fifth.

If it moves, it concerns me. Right now, everything that moves in South Africa pays for a war it didn’t start and waste it didn’t create.

Government cannot change the price of oil. It can decide how much of the pump price it keeps.

Read:

Same old oil, much bigger hit on the pocket
Fuel prices hit record highs: Here’s how to save

Bobby Ramagwede is the CEO of the Automobile Association of South Africa.

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