Fuel price hike just the tip of the iceberg

The lovely Snapdragon, my present wife, isn’t bothered much by the huge fuel price increase waiting for us – brooms don’t fly on petrol. But for the rest of us, it’s a huge concern.

Fuel prices affect every little part of our lives – from food prices to the cost of electricity. And with the 35% unemployment in the country, rampant inflation is the last thing we can afford.

Yes, I understand the influence of the war in the Ukraine has on our pain at the fuel pump, but it adds insult to injury to know that the people of our sad, wonderful country have to fork out money they don’t have while government refuses to take a stand on the Russian invasion.

It hurts to know that the people we have elected to run this country for the people lends its silent approval to the attack that plays a major part in our financial pain.

Of course, it is naive to think the Ukrainian conflict is the only reason for a situation where we can only get a few drops more than four litres of Sasol’s finest juice for a blue R100 note.

Government insists on economically suffocating Covid restrictions. It doesn’t take a brain surgeon to realise that the draconian coronavirus regulations and the way they have been applied, played a major role in our present fiscal woes.

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And before Covid, we suffered several quarters of recession thanks to state capture, rampant systemic corruption and maladministration.

It is ironic that we have very little to joke about on April Fool’s Day.

During the Mandela and Mbeki administrations, investors lined up to pour their dollars, euros and yens into our economy. Now, our well-deserved reputation as a kleptocracy, our unreliable electricity system and endless red tape make it almost impossible to invest in the southernmost tip of this continent.

We, the people Uncle Cyril fondly calls his fellow South Africans, are in a desperate position while suffering is only something our gang of fat cats read about in the newspapers.

We can rightly point the fingers at our government for ever increasing poverty, but they are shielded from it.

In nobody’s imagination can this make sense. The fuel price is only a symbol of a much bigger problem. And we, the people, will have to solve it.