The Department of Minerals and Energy has announced that the retail price of all grades of petrol will go up on Wednesday, 5 March 2008. Petrol will go up by 61 cents per litre whilst diesel will go up by 78 cents per litre. The wholesale price of illuminating paraffin will also rise by 76 cents per litre whilst the single maximum national retail price for illuminating paraffin will increase by 102 cents a litre.

This now means that one litre of petrol in Gauteng will cost R8.25 and R8.01 at the coast. This is astronomical! For someone with a 60 litre tank on their car, it means they will now have to pay R495 to fill up their tank in Gauteng.

This petrol hike has largely been attributed to the softening rand and the high world oil prices. And this may not be the only hike, as there could easily be another hike soon if the Rand remains soft against the other currencies. It is now time something is done about these rising prices in South Africa. If the price of fuel goes up, the price of everything else goes up and that means inflation will go up. It seems like it is a never ending cycle. Whatever happened to the talk about introducing bio fuels in South Africa?

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