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Speaker 1: Well, there was a lot of focus on the diesel

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Speaker 1: price and on the petrol price, and yesterday of course

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Speaker 1: focus on the relief given by government through the fuel levee.

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Speaker 1: But the other thing that does go up when the

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Speaker 1: price of those materials go up is the price of

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Speaker 1: illuminating paraffine. The jump from today is enormous eleven rand

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Speaker 1: and sixty seven cents per liter and this is something

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Speaker 1: that's going to absolutely hammer South Africa's poorest households. The

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Speaker 1: product illuminating paraffine an absolute lifeline in homes without either

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Speaker 1: reliable or affordable electricity or both. Let's get a sense

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Speaker 1: then of the implications of this and welcome to seven

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Speaker 1: h two Drive. Morven Abrams, program coordinator of Peter Marisburg

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Speaker 1: Economic Justice and Dignity. They every month produce an absolute

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Speaker 1: must read survey which looks at the price of basic goods.

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Speaker 1: They look at metro, they look at small towns. I

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Speaker 1: think Springbok for many years, I don't know if it

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Speaker 1: still is is one of the places they've focused on.

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Speaker 1: But they certainly have a very keen sense of how

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Speaker 1: these price changes affect people in the furthest corners of

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Speaker 1: our country. Mervyn Abrams, welcome and thanks very much for

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Speaker 1: giving us your time. Any idea of what kind of

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Speaker 1: number or percentage of South Africans rely on paraffine as

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Speaker 1: their essential fuel, be it for cooking, lighting, or heating.

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Speaker 2: So good afternoon, John, and good afternoon to all your listeners. John.

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Speaker 2: Unfortunately that data is not available, so we don't know

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Speaker 2: exactly how many South Africans use illuminating paraffine. But what

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Speaker 2: we do know is that most of the users of

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Speaker 2: paraffine are located in informal settlements around the country because

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Speaker 2: they are in areas where there are no electricity connections,

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Speaker 2: so in a way, they are cut off from free

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Speaker 2: basic electricity support the government gives to poor households. So

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Speaker 2: there are around the cities, and it's our estimation that

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Speaker 2: quite a large portion of people living in informal settlements

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Speaker 2: use illuminating paraffine as their source of energy.

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Speaker 1: So, mister Abrams, I mean, is there a thing that

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Speaker 1: government could have done equivalent to what they did using

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Speaker 1: the fuel levy to at least try and temper the

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Speaker 1: effects of the diesel and fuel price hike.

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Speaker 2: So just to give your listeners a sense of the

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Speaker 2: fuel hike. So we have been asking women around the

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Speaker 2: informal settlements around Durban, for instance, around what they currently

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Speaker 2: pay for a liter of paraffin, and on average they

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Speaker 2: say they pay about fifteen rand and fifty cents. We

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Speaker 2: asked them, you know, round about an average, how much

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Speaker 2: paraffin would you use per week? And it ranges from

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Speaker 2: three and a half to about six liters of paraffin

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Speaker 2: a week. Now, if we take that that figure of

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Speaker 2: fifteen rand and fifty cents is applied generally, and if

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Speaker 2: we look at a household and say they use five

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Speaker 2: liters of paraffin, then they would have paid last week

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Speaker 2: seventy seven rand and fifty cents for their paraffine use

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Speaker 2: per week. Now today they will be paying one hundred

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Speaker 2: and fifty five rand and eighty five cents. So I

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Speaker 2: could see it's almost double what those households will have

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Speaker 2: to pay. So the impact of that will be immediate

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Speaker 2: and it will be severe. John, And it's our view

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Speaker 2: that government should subst dies illuminating paraffine at the source

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Speaker 2: of its entry into the country. Now, it's we are

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Speaker 2: not sure exactly how many importers we have and what

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Speaker 2: refinery capacity we have but it's our view that that

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Speaker 2: cannot be that many companies who are at the source

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Speaker 2: of the parisin and if government subsidized at that level

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Speaker 2: give the same subsidies given to diesel and to petrol,

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Speaker 2: then it can relieve, it can bring some form of

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Speaker 2: relief to perhaps the poorest section of South African. Well.

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Speaker 1: One of the important things, mister Abrams about the work

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Speaker 1: you and your colleagues do is you look not just

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Speaker 1: at prices but at the implications of price hikes, and

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Speaker 1: I'm wondering in terms of food security and the really

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Speaker 1: really fine margins that many people are dealing with. In

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Speaker 1: that regard, presumably the consequence of there being less money

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Speaker 1: for food will not just be the absolute amount, but

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Speaker 1: for example, whereas you might have made savings buying in bulk,

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Speaker 1: you're going to have to buy smaller portions and so on.

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Speaker 1: I would assume that the impact of this goes well

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Speaker 1: beyond just the number you gave us, but also the

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Speaker 1: impact on buying and storage patterns.

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Speaker 2: Yes, yes, John, So it will definitely the impact the

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Speaker 2: storage or the preservation of food as well as the cooking.

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Speaker 2: But you know, the most important impact, the most direct impact,

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Speaker 2: is going to be less money available to purchase food

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Speaker 2: in the perfect place, because now your energible has escalated,

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Speaker 2: in the case of parissin almost doubled. So what most

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Speaker 2: households and what most women tell us is that they

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Speaker 2: have only one strategy, and that is now to eat

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Speaker 2: less or to eat less for nutritious food, which of

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Speaker 2: course is cheaper, so like by a two minute noodles

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Speaker 2: instead of eating samp etc. So they're going to have

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Speaker 2: to change what they purchased. And also most know less

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Speaker 2: nutritional food. And we know, as we have discussed in

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Speaker 2: the past, the negative socioeconomic and development consequences for our

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Speaker 2: children in particular, but also for our country.

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Speaker 1: I mean, as you mentioned children, what popped into my

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Speaker 1: mind is also the importance of light and lighting in

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Speaker 1: the evenings, both for personal safety but also for the

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Speaker 1: development of young people. Coming home, you've got homework to

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Speaker 1: do and so on. These consequences can't be quantified, but

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Speaker 1: I don't think it makes them any less real exactly exactly.

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Speaker 2: And so you see a child, for instance, in school,

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Speaker 2: I mean either being tired in the morning because they

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Speaker 2: didn't have enough to eat, not able to do their

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Speaker 2: homework of course, not being able to utilize the immense

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Speaker 2: amount of money that that government allocates to education. So

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Speaker 2: it actually undermined so less energy, as you say, not

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Speaker 2: being able to study, perhaps not being able to have

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Speaker 2: sufficient food because the energy bill has now increased, you

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Speaker 2: are actually undermining another important development area of the country,

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Speaker 2: which is education. And so in a way, it's almost

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Speaker 2: like somebody said to me this morning, by not subsidizing paraffine,

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Speaker 2: government is cutting its nose to spite its face, because

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Speaker 2: you know, we're going to see the outcomes of that

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Speaker 2: come the end of this year's educational outcome.

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Speaker 1: Just a final one for you, mister Abrams. I mean,

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Speaker 1: and no, margins have always been tight for the community

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Speaker 1: that you survey, and you make that abundantly clear every month.

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Speaker 1: But if things return to normal and this fuel price

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Speaker 1: variable goes back to where it was, were there any

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Speaker 1: indications from your monthly surveys that food inflation was, while

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Speaker 1: still damaging to many people's life chances nevertheless starting to

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Speaker 1: come down. Were we on the right track? And you know,

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Speaker 1: is there any reason to hope that we might get

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Speaker 1: back to that right track a and go further down

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Speaker 1: at so.

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Speaker 2: We have been on the right track exactly as you've said, so,

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Speaker 2: for instance, in our March data, we have not seen

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Speaker 2: any kind of increases around, any major increases in food,

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Speaker 2: so anything to do with this current fuel crisis in

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Speaker 2: the Middle East has not yet impacted food prices. We

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Speaker 2: do expect though, that over the next six weeks or so,

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Speaker 2: that we will begin to see increases, particularly on foods

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Speaker 2: that are imported, so like rice, sunflower, oil, wheat, et cetera.

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Speaker 2: We expect to see some of that coming through. But

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Speaker 2: the really worrying trend is that I've been reading some

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Speaker 2: data a John that indicates that we will if the

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Speaker 2: war ends within the next six months, we will only

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Speaker 2: get back to where we were a month ago by

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Speaker 2: twenty thirty three.

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Speaker 1: Oh my goodness.

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Speaker 2: Who it's going to work its way through the system

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Speaker 2: in a and once you have, once you are in

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Speaker 2: an upward trajectory, it is very, very difficult to bring

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Speaker 2: it down again. And that's what the oil the petroleum

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Speaker 2: market is speculating at the moment. Thank you so much.

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Speaker 1: Mervyn Abram's program coordinator at peter Mansburg Economic Justice and Dignity.

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Speaker 1: The implications of the the steep stick hike in the

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Speaker 1: price of illuminating paraffine eleven around sixty seven per liter.

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Speaker 1: That's not the price, that's the increase and the implications

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Speaker 1: of that. Also some thoughts on what government might do

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Speaker 1: by way of some kind of relief intervention. Twenty eight

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Speaker 1: minutes past four