There is nothing quite like the price of petrol to bring an economic crisis down to ground level.
You can read about crude oil, the rand, inflation and turmoil in the Middle East. But then you fill your car and suddenly the crisis becomes very personal.
I live in the deep south of Cape Town, and the rising cost of fuel has changed the way I use my car. Trips into the city have been cut to a bare minimum. When I do go, I combine as many purposes as possible. Shopping, appointments and other errands have to fit into the same journey.
People I speak to are doing much the same. Think of the average sales representative whose livelihood depends on visiting customers. Calls have to be planned and bunched together geographically. Some visits will inevitably be postponed or replaced by telephone calls or online meetings.
That is how a fuel shock works its way through an economy: thousands of small decisions resulting in fewer journeys, fewer purchases, fewer sales calls and less demand.
But there is a bigger question. Why is South Africa so vulnerable to an external shock that it cannot control?
The country cannot control wars in the Middle East or the international price of crude oil. But it can decide how well prepared it is for them.
The fuel crisis exposes a deeper problem. South Africa has lost much of its refining capacity and is heavily dependent on imported petroleum products. The country has also had a remarkable history with strategic fuel stocks.
In 2015, about 10 million barrels of South Africa’s strategic crude reserves were sold. The oil was stored in enormous underground tanks at Saldanha Bay. The transaction was subsequently set aside by the High Court.
I was once shown those tanks. It was difficult not to think about what they represented: a strategic reserve held precisely because a country might one day face an international energy crisis.
Yet the oil was sold.
Now, in the middle of another international energy crisis, government is talking about rebuilding strategic stocks, with a proposed reserve equivalent to 60 days of net imports, eventually rising to 90 days.
There is another question motorists are entitled to ask: what happens to all the money collected through fuel taxes?
The 2026 Budget expects about R104 billion in fuel-levy revenue. Nobody disputes that the government needs revenue. But when motorists are being hammered by an external shock, and trust in government is already weak, it is reasonable to ask how much of that revenue is being used to build the resilience needed to protect the economy from the next shock.
I also remember last year’s fuel-price increase as South Africans were preparing for the December-January holiday period. It made me wonder about the timing. Was it simply the international pricing formula at work? Or does the system inevitably allow government to collect more revenue when millions of people are committed to travelling and cannot easily cancel their plans?
I don’t know the answer. But these are questions people will ask.
Perhaps the most important point is that the problem is not simply the fuel-price increase. It is South Africa’s ability to absorb repeated financial shocks.
Nobody expects South Africa to control the price of crude oil. But we should expect a country to prepare for the shocks it knows will come. Because there will be another one.
The question is whether South Africa will be ready — or whether we will once again simply pay the price at the petrol pump.
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