After reading Roelof Botha's (Economist) views in this article, I decided to do a bit of maths to try and see where he came up with his stance of the rich being the only ones getting poorer, in opposition to the views of COSATU.
I drive an Audi A4, and have been collecting accurate fuel statistics on my car without fail since April 2011, thanks to a website called Fuelly.com. Using this tool, I found that my car consumes a modest 8.4L/100km in fuel, and on average since April last year, it costs about 90c/km (in fuel) to run, with stats to back it up. Around 90% of my driving is done on the highway, specifically the N1 between Fourways and Roodepoort, where I go through 3 of the new e-tolls.
I get +-700km on my 60 litre tank for filling around 58L or so at the pump each time. So 90c/km and 700km equates to around R630 per tank. This is at the current fuel price of R10.95 for 95 octane in Gauteng. Assume now that the toll of 40c per km was being charged in addition for my highway driving. This would take the cost per km up from 90c to R1.30. If I were doing 700km of highway driving (1 tank), I would now be paying a total of R910, up from R630. This is an increase of R280. My initial cost was R630 / 60L = +-R10.5/litre. With the new value of R910, I will effectively be paying R910 / 60L = +-R15.17/litre, assuming I am mostly doing highway driving. That is an increase of R4.22 over the current fuel price of R10.95!
Everytime I drive on the N1, there are a lot of delivery trucks, with Checkers, Pick 'n Pay, Spar and so forth logos. Trucks use a lot more fuel than I do, and their tolls are 5 times the toll I pay above. These trucks carry bread, milk and so forth, together with other goods, especially foods. They have to make up that toll money somehow, and the logical route is to charge more for the goods in the stores. So your basic food prices are going to go up a lot, since you are paying an effective 39% more (R4.22/R10.95) for travelling on the highways, and trucks are paying even more.
So bring on the R1 extra fuel levy. It is less than 25% of what the tolls would cost us, and would have a far lesser negative effect on the economy, as well as on the poor, who would be forced like the rest of us, to pay more for basic food needs.
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