The Department of Energy says government’s effort to intervene to keep the fuel price down is a once-off aimed at giving consumers slight relief.

On Monday, the department said government would absorb most of this month’s fuel price increase.

Petrol will increase by 5 cents a litre with effect from Tuesday midnight to cater for annual increases of petrol station staff.

South Africa has witnessed sustained increases in fuel prices for the past few months, which have placed a strain on consumers.

The Department’s Director of fuel pricing Robert Maake says, “The Minister [Jeff Radebe] decided to intervene because as you know the prices were going up since April this year. What will happen is that oil companies are supposed to recover money from fuel prices but they’re not going to recover it because of the price intervention. What will then happen in line with the regulation will then look at the following month or the month after and so on and the fuel prices increases are not so huge but we need to ensure that the oil companies recover the monies.”

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