Amidst South Africans paying record high fuel prices, trade union Solidarity has announced that it plans to pressure government to deregulate the petrol price and to ultimately lower fuel prices.

Solidarity said that it has drafted a parliamentary petition regarding high fuel prices.  In its petition Solidarity demands that the determination of fuel prices be left entirely to the market so that healthy competition can prevail for the benefit of consumers.

Theuns du Buisson, economics researcher at the Solidarity Research Institute (SRI), said that the government’s determining of fuel prices is hurting the economy.

“Our research shows that in South Africa price regulation is keeping fuel prices artificially high,” said Du Buisson.

He claims that the exchange rate and international oil price amounts to just under half of the final petrol price with taxes in the form of fuel and Road Accident Fund levies, as well as prescribed profits for role players spanning from the importer all the way to the filling station owner, making up the rest.

The Citizen reported that South Africans are currently paying a record R21.60 per litre of 95 octane petrol after the Energy Department, on Saturday, announced that both grades of petrol, 93 and 95 octane, would increase by R1.46 per litre while motorists will be paying R1.48 more for a litre of diesel.

Russia’s war with Ukraine has had a massive impact on oil prices with the spot price of crude oil soaring to a seven-year high to above the $110 a barrel mark on Wednesday for the first time since July 2014.