Ah, South Africa. Alive with possibilities. Or at least it used to be. Now? We’re barely alive, what with rising petrol prices, rising electricity prices and the ever present demogorgon that is load shedding. (If you didn’t get it, that’s a Stranger Things reference – season four is out, and it’s better than seasons two and three, in our opinion. Although good luck trying to watch it with said load shedding. 😆)
Here’s what you need to know:
🔹Petrol prices rose on Wednesday to almost 54% more than] it did last year when it stood at R17.39. Look out, cooking oil, you have competition. 👀 The Department of Energy has also announced that the petrol levy relief would be reduced from R1.50 to 75c (but this reduction will end in August). The levy relief has been in effect since April. Although there have been calls to scrap the levy altogether, to ease the impact on motorists, this would see the government’s purse lose at least R90 billion.
🔹Municipal tariff hikes came into effect on 1 July 2022. In what is likely to be a reprieve for citizens, the City of Johannesburg hiked its electricity prices by only 👀 7.47%, nearly half the previous financial year’s hike. Tshwane also reported a 7.47% increase in the price of electricity.
🔹As noted above, labour unions have accepted a wage deal with striking Eskom workers on Tuesday afternoon, so loadshedding will slowly ease up. As it stands power cuts for the weekend are expected to be between Stage 2 and 3, but this depends on returning generating units. We hope this brings back a sense of normalcy because it feels like we’ve been living in the Upside Down, darkness and all.
Tshego is a writer and law student from Pretoria. A keen follower of social media trends, his interests include high fantasy media, politics, science, talk radio, reading and listening to music.
He is also probably one of the only people left who still play Pokemon Go.
