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Speaker 1: He's pulling up to your hood and your home to

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Speaker 1: hear your neighborhood story. It's Lester in your lounge live

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Speaker 1: on Cato two, one, four, four, six oh five, six seven.

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Speaker 1: Are you feeling about this first of April? Where the

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Speaker 1: good news is it could have been worse. Finance minsay

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Speaker 1: in a god and I Guana cutting the fuel levee

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Speaker 1: by three rand perlita for petrol and diesel only in

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Speaker 1: the month of April. It's a temporary move with discussions

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Speaker 1: ongoing for a possible extension. It is to help buffer

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Speaker 1: South Africans from what would have been a six rand

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Speaker 1: elita increase now about three rand alita for petrol, would

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Speaker 1: have been a ten rand polita increase for diesel now

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Speaker 1: seven rand. It's the relief that's meant to soften the blow,

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Speaker 1: but it doesn't stop record high prices. Joining me now

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Speaker 1: to Mondor'sburg. Cput Is head of Economics. Simply by dropping

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Speaker 1: three year rand for this month, the fiscus is losing

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Speaker 1: I think six billion rand. Do we have the room,

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Speaker 1: the breathing space to be extended beyond the month of April?

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Speaker 2: Mordern, good morning, No, we don't. Leicester, I think we've

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Speaker 2: already heard that. They have said government has specifically said

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Speaker 2: they can't take it beyond June, they might look at May.

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Speaker 2: So there's a massive shorted you know. And the other

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Speaker 2: thing is they said that it's going to be fiscally

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Speaker 2: neutral in that what that means is that that those taxes,

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Speaker 2: those indirect taxes, have to be recovered through other measures.

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Speaker 2: So what we're not paying now we may well be

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Speaker 2: paying and will be paying in the future somehow to recover.

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Speaker 1: So the cuts to petrol, that that three year rand

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Speaker 1: off the price of petrol at least the levees that

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Speaker 1: will consumers maybe people use taxes, uh, the the the

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Speaker 1: the cut to diesel, that will probably help buff in

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Speaker 1: terms of the goods and the feud and the and

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Speaker 1: the food prices are possible increase over the next well.

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Speaker 1: But where we don't see an impact is to the

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Speaker 1: price of petrol. Paraffine is the I'm sorry, paraffine is

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Speaker 1: the hardest heat fuel and that is quietly the heaviest

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Speaker 1: blow to the poorest of South African households. Something like

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Speaker 1: two million South African real households still rely on petrol.

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Speaker 1: Why couldn't Why can't rather the government intervene where the

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Speaker 1: poorest or the poor are still not buffered from the

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Speaker 1: from the rising costs of paraffin.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, to answer your question why they can't only they

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Speaker 2: could answer, but you one hundred percent correct that this

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Speaker 2: is only on fuel petrol and diesel and the the

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Speaker 2: as you say, the community that relies on para is

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Speaker 2: going to have to make alternative arrangements or you know,

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Speaker 2: absorb that price increase. Yeah. I think it comes back

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Speaker 2: to the discussion you and I had some time ago

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Speaker 2: in terms of the fact that this is this is

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Speaker 2: all as a result of not being strategically prepared. And

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Speaker 2: while while it is positive, there's no doubt obviously that

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Speaker 2: it's positive that we're not going to feel the greater

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Speaker 2: increase today from today, the question is still how long

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Speaker 2: can we maintain it and why wasn't more done previously

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Speaker 2: in terms of holding larger reserves in a situation where

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Speaker 2: we have low capacity to refine. Remember, just the few

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Speaker 2: reserves that we have or the lower levels of reserves

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Speaker 2: that we have is largely in crude oil that still

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Speaker 2: has to be refined. So where we're going to be

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Speaker 2: in a month from now, two months from now, if

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Speaker 2: these prices continue is frightening, less than the impact on

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Speaker 2: the economy is huge.

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Speaker 1: So what we rely on now is a man in Tehran,

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Speaker 1: a man in Tel Aviv, and a man of diminishing

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Speaker 1: cognitive faculty in the White House in Washington to somehow

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Speaker 1: solve this problem for the rest of the world South

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Speaker 1: Africa like other countries South Africa the sixteenth because you,

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Speaker 1: as we've spoken about our lack of resilience and forward thinking,

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Speaker 1: we're now relying of when is this conclusion of this

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Speaker 1: Iran war, more and more boats going through the Strait

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Speaker 1: of hojj Mus that is the only way South Africans

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Speaker 1: in particular get out of the quagmire.

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Speaker 2: One hundred percent correct. And the question also remains to

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Speaker 2: what extent world ending of this Middle East conflict, how

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Speaker 2: long will it take for fuel prices to indirectly come

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Speaker 2: down in South Africa? And we're already hearing that even

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Speaker 2: at the moment in the Middle East, the the ships

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Speaker 2: that are passing through the strait are paying increased levies.

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Speaker 2: So exactly, and my question is what are the Iranians

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Speaker 2: going to do after Do you think they're simply going

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Speaker 2: to say, well, thanks, the wars over so now let's,

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Speaker 2: you know, let everything go back to the original status quo.

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Speaker 2: I wonder, I wonder if there isn't going to be

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Speaker 2: continued economic knock on negative effects. But you know, by

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Speaker 2: the Iranians saying, well, you did this to us, why

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Speaker 2: should we then just come back to the party and allow.

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Speaker 2: So what's happening is you're having selective countries allowing having

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Speaker 2: their ships passed through at a premium. So that's my

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Speaker 2: point is I'm not so sure that this price is

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Speaker 2: simply this fuel price that we're experiencing now is simply

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Speaker 2: going to come down at the end of this Middle

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Speaker 2: East conflict. I think we could be seeing these each

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Speaker 2: prices for significant times to come. Remember, we dependent on

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Speaker 2: refined largely dependent on refined fuel. So even though we

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Speaker 2: purchased a lot of our crewd from Angola and Nigeria,

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Speaker 2: we are still very dependent on the import of refined fuel.

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Speaker 2: Diesel drives on economy refined.

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Speaker 1: You have to leave it there, but really appreciate your time.

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Speaker 1: Sorry for cutting off what you're running late for news

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Speaker 1: that's already