Petrol decrease was delayed due to government incompetence
Routinely, the first Wednesday of every month sees the cost of petrol and diesel go either up or down, however, this was not the case for July.
On Wednesday, five weeks after South Africa’s national election, the newly fashioned Government of National Unity (GNU) were officially sworn into office.
This meant that the ministers were not instated in time to sign off on the new petrol prices, delaying the change in gas charges until Thursday, July 4.
The Department of Mineral Resources and Energy only formally announced this change on Tuesday evening, leading to widespread confusion over when citizens should refill their vehicles or wait a further day.
The late announcement meant that national news sites such as News24, Business Tech and Middelburg Observer incorrectly reported that South Africans could get cheaper petrol from midnight, on July 3.
The GNU was announced on Sunday, with President Cyril Ramaphosa and the ANC spending weeks agonisingly going through the process of finalising his cabinet for their next term.
This was the first time the ANC had lost the majority, since Nelson Mandela’s reign as the Rainbow Nation’s first democratically voted president in 1994.
