ADVANCE WARNING ON FUEL PRICE HIKE COULD TRIGGER MAD RUSH

LOBAMBA – No ways! This is the response that Minister of Natural Resources and Energy Jabulile Mashwama gave to senators, after being asked if motorists would ever get to be notified at least two weeks before the implementation of a fuel price hike.

The minister gave the response that it would not happen anytime soon during the portfolio committee debate of the ministry at Senate yesterday. Posing the question was Senator Chief Sotunwane Sacolo, who wanted to know if government found it fair that motorists were usually shocked with the price hike and did not have time to prepare themselves. Sacolo mentioned that consumers deserved to be informed on time whenever there were changes that were going to affect them.

“You go to sleep with a litre of petrol costing E12 and when you wake up, you discover that it has increased by E1. There must be a way to give us time,” he said.
The minister mentioned that it was not advisable to make such a decision and argued that it was a dangerous industry that the senator was talking about.
“If we can do that then people would do crazy things like filling up the petrol in drums. When it comes to the price hike there is always an indication of crude oil going up. Giving that information in advance ngeke kulunge, kungasha lelive,” she said which means, “It cannot work, the country would burn.”

The minister was also asked to shed light on why investors were not keen to operate some of the country’s mines, to which she responded by saying there were many applications but that most of the aspiring companies ended up not meeting the requirements.
The senators mentioned that since it was obvious that it was the requirements that chased investors away, there was a need to consider reviewing them so as to make the environment conductive.

As is always the case during the portfolio committee debate of the ministry, the senators also demanded feedback on how far the county had gone in ensuring there was self sustainability in the generation of electricity.
She mentioned that her ministry had a programme which provided that the country should be able to provide at least 50 per cent of its own generated electricity by the year 2022, and do even better in order to avoid problems when the contract with South Africa’s ESKOM expires in 2025. 

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