Meanwhile, in South Africa…

Here’s today’s news:

> Stage 5 loadshedding: meaning an average of 10 hours without electricity each day.

Here’s our local supermarket’s tongue-in-cheek repsonse:

Yes, those are candles. A huge array of many different types of candle.
And yes, that light top right was being powered by a generator.

> There’s a massive fuel price increase this week because the government has f*****d the Rand:

“Motorists are in for a shocking fuel price increase from Wednesday. The price of petrol will go up by R1.71 per litre, diesel by R2.84 and paraffin by R2.78.”

> The President is attending the inauguration of Zimbabwe’s President, even though the entire world knows that the election was more rigged than a particularly complex 19th Century tea clipper:

…the elections were marred by controversy – including issues with the voters’ roll, the banning of opposition rallies, reports of biased state media coverage and voter intimidation.

> Cyril will then be heading home to “address the nation”, and tell us that the enquiry by the SA government into whether the SA government supplied arms to Russia has found out that the SA government didn’t supply arms to Russia, but the SA government can’t show us the SA government report exonerating the SA government, because that would “jeopardise the work of the SA armed forces”.

> And all this is being rubbed like salt into an open wound as the ANC shitterati dance with each other while the country falls apart:

“The mood [fire emoji] [fire emoji]”?
Is it,? That’s weird, because the mood is very different across everyone else in the country. But then I guess that it’s easy to be happy and dancey when your continual mismanagement, gross incompetence and widespread corruption only negatively affect other people.

Ugh. Trash.

Beware the petrol price drop

The preamble:
The petrol price in South Africa is regulated by the Department of Energy. That means that wherever you go within your locality, the price you are charged per litre will be the same. The only variation in price is between coastal and inland areas, e.g. Joburg prices are different to Cape Town, because of the additional cost of transporting the fuel from where it’s made/shipped to, to where it’s sold.

You might like this system, you might not. You may even be wholly ambivalent about it. It is, as they say, what it is.
And it’s not what this post is about.

The petrol price changes monthly to allow for any increases and decreases in the oil price and variations in the USD/ZAR exchange rate. These changes are announced in the last week of each month and instituted at midnight between the first Tuesday and first Wednesday of the following month. And it’s been good news recently for the South African motorist, thanks to the oil price being in freefall. The price of a litre of Unleaded dropped by 93c at midnight last night from R10.83/l to R9.90/l, and it was for this reason that I didn’t fill up on the way home yesterday.

In which I buy some petrol:
I don’t generally subscribe to the queuing up ahead of a fuel price hike – saving a few cents or a couple of Rand isn’t worth the time, effort and frustration. But when I need lots of petrol, the price is dropping quite a bit in six hours, I can fill up on the way to work and save enough for a six pack of beers, well then it’s the perfect storm of logic, right there.
So I filled up this morning and it was only afterwards that I noticed that I had been charged the old rate.

This shouldn’t have happened.

I would have noticed straight away, but I thought that I needed more than 50 litres, and the guy actually put in 45 litres. No issue there, you only pay for what you take, obviously, but I only looked at the price (R490.00), which just made me think I’d got more petrol at a cheaper rate. Compare 50l at R9.90 (R495) vs 45l at R10.83 (R490). It was only when I looked at the receipt closely that I noticed the “error”.

DSC_0006

In which I go back the the petrol retailer and ask what’s going on:
I headed back to the garage about 30 minutes later, receipt in hand, to speak to the manager. I had a quick look at the pumps as I walked in and – fair enough – they were showing the new, lower price of R9.90.

The manager was friendly enough. He immediately apologised, told me that there “had been a glitch” and they’d “had to reset the system”. He paid me R44 difference, told me he needed to keep my receipt (conveniently removing any evidence of naughtiness) (apart from the photo I took of it) and we went our separate ways.

I’m not going to name and shame here, because I have no evidence that there was any deliberate wrongdoing here – as I say, it looked like the pumps had been updated in the intervening half hour. (Afterthought: but are the pumps linked to the card machine in any way?)
But then look at it the other way: the garage was packed this morning because of the petrol price drop, and if every motorist there in the first seven and a half hours of today was being overcharged by R44, then someone (spoiler: it’s the garage owner) is making a pretty penny. Or more.

These things happen elsewhere too:

As I mentioned earlier, I’m not saying there was deliberate dishonesty here, but what I am saying is that – much like every sell by date in SA – you should double check before you assume that you’re getting the right deal.

Happy motoring.

Do not pass Go…

I really enjoyed Jerm’s offering this morning and he has given me kind permission to share it with you on here:

It really does feel that way at the moment. The sponge is being squeezed and there’s very little bathwater left to drip out.

For us in Cape Town, the next nasty “surprise” is the July 1st rates increase, which inevitably includes hefty hikes in electricity and water as well. While this will obviously prompt shock and outrage from the uninformed population (probably on the 2nd, as the 1st is a Sunday), this happens every year, with alarming regularity.

On a more positive note, we could (could) be looking at a petrol price drop in the meantime. And, if oil continues on its current downward trend and the Rand holds firm for a few more weeks, it might be as much as 55c/litre. That would give you more than 3 weeks to save up so you can light your house in July.

Happy Days!

It’s beginning to hurt

More and more of the column inches of the newspapers in South Africa are being devoted to inflation, interest rates, petrol prices and the cost of living. While the entire world is suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous oil prices and the so called “credit crunch”, South Africa – as a developing economy – has taken a harder hit than most.

Being a weaker currency than those of the developed economies, our Rand has taken a bit of a battering. This means that imported goods are more expensive – and that includes oil. And – as you may know (unless you’ve been hiding out in a cave with Osama) – oil has also been going up pretty quickly anyway.
The effect of this is known in economic circles as “compound misery”.
So – because everything costs more to produce – inflation goes up, the Reserve Bank tries to stop people buying things by increasing interest rates and eventually, we all end up living on the grass we’ve been growing in our back gardens. (Stop sniggering at the back).

We’ve been hearing about this for a long time now. But it’s only in the last couple of months that it seems to really be hitting home for the general population. It’s as if a line has been crossed.  Car sales are down 23% year on year. The housing market has stopped completely* in a way that would have the average Daily Mail reader contemplating suicide (oh go on then – if you must).
And then this from the Southern Suburbs biggest shopping mall on a Sunday lunchtime:

 
Cavendish Square – not square and not full

And yes – all the shops were open. It’s just that no-one has any money to spend in them.

We’ve been told to expect it to get worse before it gets better.
One wonders just how much worse we can manage.

* Although the headline “R110-million for SA’s priciest flat” might make you think otherwise…