Some residents from informal settlements on the Cape Flats say they are struggling to cook and keep warm this winter due to a paraffin shortage. There has been an increase in demand for the fuel due to cold and wet conditions in the Mother City.
Residents say the increase in the price of illuminating paraffin will also push up the cost of living and making it more and more difficult for them to survive. In Gugulethu, hundreds of residents rushed to buy paraffin before it was sold out.
Gugulethu residents make their way to paraffin sellers in the early hours of the morning to buy paraffin and fill up empty canisters. They say paraffin is essential for their daily activities at home such as cooking and heating up their dwellings.
They also say that although they cannot afford the current price of paraffin, which sells for up to R30 a litre, during the cold winter months, they cannot live without it.
One resident, 32 year-old Lumka Mgqobzana, says she even had to travel to more than one paraffin seller on Tuesday, after the first one she visited was out of stock. She says this makes her situation even more difficult, because now she has to spend even more money on traveling.
