South Africa will reduce a tax imposed on fuel to offset the impact of surging oil prices on domestic gasoline, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The levy will be reduced by R3.00 per litre for both petrol and diesel in April, Godongwana said in an interview at the South Africa Investment Conference in Johannesburg on Tuesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The measure will be announced at a briefing later in the day, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cI will temporarily be lowering the fuel levy for this month of April by R3.00, and then I am still discussing what we can do for the next two months,\u201d Godongwana said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The measure, which comes as other oil-importing nations, including South Korea and the Philippines, take steps to soften the impact on their economies of the Iran war, signals concern about the potential implications for inflation and consumer demand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa\u2019s central bank is targeting inflation of 3% and the government was projecting economic growth this year of 1.6% before the conflict began. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Oil prices have surged almost 50% since the US and Israel attacked Iran on 28 February.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a prudent decision,\u201d said Michael Grobler, a fixed-income strategist at Ashburton Fund Managers Ltd. \u201cI think it will blunt the inflation impact and help preserve GDP growth\u201d, while also tempering rate-hike expectations, he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Data from South Africa\u2019s Central Energy Fund suggested that, as a result of the surge in oil and the weakening of the rand against the dollar, the retail price for 95-octane petrol may jump almost 30% on Wednesday, with the wholesale cost of diesel expected to rise by more than half.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa previously reduced its general fuel levy temporarily in 2022 to help offset a rise in prices after Russia\u2019s invasion of Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fuel levy raised an estimated R97 billion in the financial year that ends on Tuesday, according to the National Treasury.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The general fuel levy on petrol is currently R4.01 per litre and, prior to Godongwana\u2019s announcement, was set to increase to R4.10 on Wednesday. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
For diesel, the general fuel levy is R3.85 and was set to rise to R3.93. The Road Accident Fund levy is set to climb to R2.25 from R2.18.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even with the R3.00 per litre cut to fuel levies, South Africans are still bracing for record-high fuel price increases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The last published fuel recovery data from the Central Energy Fund (CEF) projected increases of R6 per litre for petrol and over R10 per litre for diesel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With the R3.00 per litre cut announced by Godongwana, these should be reduced to increases of R3 per litre for petrol and R7 per litre for diesel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The official petrol price adjustments are expected to be announced on Tuesday (31 March).<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Additional reporting by BusinessTech<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" South Africa will reduce a tax imposed on fuel to offset the impact of surging oil prices on domestic gasoline, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":855404,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9874],"tags":[20799,2171],"class_list":["post-855399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-energy","tag-godongwana","tag-petrol-price"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855399","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=855399"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855399\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":855409,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/855399\/revisions\/855409"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/855404"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=855399"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=855399"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=855399"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}