Oh crap. Oh crap, oh crap, oh crap.
While not entirely unexpected, if you have been following the international business markets that is, but the announcement this week that in all likelihood petrol is expected to rise by an estimated 70 cents at the end of this month is more than a little bit of a shocker. This will be the seventh straight petrol price increase this year already, and it will punch the price of fuel here in the Cape right through that R10 per litre mark at last.
Hopefully by now you are already riding in a lift club to work, or at least car pooling for some of your trips, because if not, you might need to start becoming a lot more friendly with your bicycle or walking shoes much sooner than later (though looking around at the state of South Africa’s overall health, this may not be such a bad idea after all!). As it is, I know that the petrol price is already factoring heavily into my decisions on what trips to make and what trips to forgo, never mind the fact that the steadily rising fuel price is playing havoc with almost all commodity items that one needs to purchase just to survive!
Of course, these rising costs aren’t particularly favourable to service stations either, particularly with the current prediction of between 10 to 15 percent of garages actually going out of business before the end of this year alone! One might ask where this is going to end, but it looks like we really are in for a rough ride for quite some years to follow, or at least until vehicle manufacturers manage to let go of this fuel fossel dependency completely!
And while I don my pair of walking shoes in the prospect of yet another walk over to Pick ‘n Pay across the street, I can only think of making the following note out loud:
Just when the heck are scientists going to discover TELEPORTATION once and for all!
Karl, get on it ASAP!
On a similar note, news reports from across the globe are streaming in detailing how the theft of fuel from filling stations (by the everyday man in the street) is steadily on the rise, with even South Africa filing its own cases of these newfound petrol bandits. Just how long is it going to be before we start seeing Fort Nox-like petrol stations at the side of our highways I wonder?