EDITORIAL: Fuel price cap blown away
Motorists are still going to cough up more, making up for the deferred pain
It was obvious from the start that the government’s intervention in September’s fuel price adjustment was not going to end well. So it has come to pass, with motorists facing a hefty increase this week, which could be more than R1/l, taking the price above R17/l. It is still not clear what energy minister Jeff Radebe was trying to achieve when he capped the fuel price in September, in a move that some economists condemned as illogical and dangerous. That kind of populist move would be understandable coming a few weeks before an election. At least then one could detect some logic, even if one disagreed with the move. On September 3 the department said it had taken the step, which meant the price rose by 5c rather than 25c, because SA had "witnessed sustained increases in fuel prices for the past few months" — as if that had never happened before. Brent crude jumped to $100 in 2014 and there was no intervention then. The move, the first since 1990, came as the government came under pr...
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