South Africa extended cuts to fuel taxes amid the prolonged conflict in the Middle East, which threatens to raise domestic petrol and diesel prices further.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The R3.00-per-litre reduction in fuel levies announced at the end of last month will continue until 2 June, the National Treasury said in a statement on Tuesday.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In addition, temporary relief for diesel will be increased by 93 cents to R3.93 per litre over that period, it said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
“For the month of June 2026, the minister of finance proposes that the level of relief is halved to phase out the relief before July,” it said. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The estimated cost of the temporary fuel levy relief from April to June is R17.2 billion in foregone revenue, the Treasury said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa imports all its oil, the price of which has surged more than 50% since the start of the war on 28 February. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The increase is adding to consumer-price pressures, where fuel accounts for almost 4% of South Africa’s inflation basket. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The higher cost of diesel also threatens grain production as wheat farmers prepare to plant and summer crop growers get ready to harvest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa’s central bank, which targets inflation of 3%, projects price-growth pressures peaking at 4.3% in April. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Governor Lesetja Kganyago has warned that the monetary policy committee is prepared to raise interest rates should the impact on inflation of a prolonged war persist.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Forward rate agreements \u2014 used to speculate on borrowing costs \u2014 are pricing in a full quarter-point hike when policymakers next meet at the end of May, and another in July.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
South Africa has also boosted oil-product shipments from the US to help replace lost supplies from the Middle East. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Before the conflict, Africa’s top oil-products importer sourced the bulk of its diesel, petrol and jet fuel from Gulf states including Oman, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nations around the world have raised fuel prices in the wake of the war, with South Africa increasing petrol prices by the most in almost two decades on 1 April.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The country is holding talks with importers and producers about how it calculates pump prices, according to the Fuel Industry Association of South Africa.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The government has extended South Africa’s petrol price intervention and announced further relief for motorists with diesel-powered vehicles.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":341034,"featured_media":644003,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_sma_x_autopost_status":"idle","_sma_x_autopost_error":"","_sma_x_post_id":"","_sma_facebook_post_id":"","_sma_instagram_post_id":"","_sma_threads_post_id":"","_sma_x_attempts":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[29366],"tags":[82991,71346,63309,12285,51719],"class_list":["post-644000","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-motoring","tag-diesel-prices","tag-enoch-godongwana","tag-general-fuel-levy","tag-national-treasury","tag-petrol-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/341034"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=644000"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":644138,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/644000\/revisions\/644138"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/644003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=644000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=644000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=644000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}