More bad news on the horizon

We’ve just emerged from our winter of discontent – which included awful Covid infection rates and deaths and widespread looting and violence – but it looks as though the pleasant summer we were looking forward to may be a bitter mirage.

And that’s because most of us are going to have to tighten our belts even further as more price rises loom, tsunami-like, on the horizon.

While Eskom is trying to get more blood of the long-suffering stone which is its consumers, it appears as though we are about to be battered by what the Automobile Association (AA) calls “a catastrophic” increase in the price of all grades of fuel for November.

For the first time in our history, we will see petrol break through the R19 a litre mark, with diesel above R17 a litre.

Those hikes will inevitably, be passed on to ordinary people – even those who don’t have vehicles – because our economy is transport-driven, literally.

There is not much we can do when international oil prices start climbing and despite a slight retreat or two, our rand is still on an overall downward slide.

We must do what we can though: drive economically and share transport.

And make those habits last.