Should Petrol Cost R10 a Litre?
A video claiming South Africans should pay around R10 a litre for petrol is circulating again after 95 petrol rose to R30.25 a litre in Gauteng on 7 October 2026. The R10 in that video is the 2021 cost of the fuel at the harbour, not a pump price, and today that part alone costs R17.44. Tax and levies add R7.46 a litre, and that is the part of the price the ANC-led government decides. On the same day the price went up, the ANC’s own MPs asked an ANC finance minister to cut those levies.
The video doing the rounds
Every time the petrol price climbs, the same video resurfaces. In it, a man works out the price of petrol by hand on a sheet of paper and concludes that South Africans should be paying around R10 a litre base cost for their fuel. Several people sent it to me on 7 October 2026, the day the new price took effect.
The copy I received also carried the words “ANC mafia must fall” across the top. Those words are not in the original video. Someone added them as it was passed on, which says a great deal about how many people blame the ANC for every increase at the pump.
His own sums, checked
The video points to a Stats SA article published in December 2021. At that time, 95 petrol inland cost R20.29 a litre, and the base cost of the fuel really was around R10. The base cost, however, is the fuel sitting at the harbour before it reaches a fuel station and before any levy is added. Nobody pays it on its own.
The creator shows this himself. He adds a wholesale margin of 41c, a retail margin of R2.25, and storage and transport of R1.41. Those add up to R4.07, but the video shows R3.78. Adding R3.78 to his base cost of R10.33 gives him R14.11 a litre before any tax, which he presents as what petrol should cost at the pump. With the correct R4.07, the figure would have been R14.40. By his own sums, R10 was the cost of the fuel, never the price at the pump.
Who decides the price
The fuel levy is a tax added to every litre, and none of it goes into the ANC’s bank account. That does not mean the ANC has no say. 2 ANC ministers decide almost every part of the price that the world market does not.
Minister Gwede Mantashe’s Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources runs the formula that sets the petrol price each month and decides what fuel stations, oil companies and transporters may charge. Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana sets the fuel levy and the Road Accident Fund levy in the annual Budget, which Parliament passes. Neither controls the international price of oil, which is the largest part of what motorists pay.
This year showed how much room they do have. On 31 March 2026, Treasury announced that the fuel levy on petrol would drop by R3 a litre from 1 April. It halved that cut in June and restored the full levy on 1 July. Across petrol and diesel, Treasury put the cost of that relief at about R17.2 billion in lost tax from April to June. When the ANC-led government wants to, it can take R3 off a litre at short notice.
Where R30.25 goes
From 7 October 2026, 95 petrol in Gauteng costs R30.25 a litre, R3.33 more than in September. The department publishes a list each month showing every cent in that litre.
The fuel itself: R17.44 a litre, or 58%. The formula calculates what it would cost to buy that petrol overseas and ship it to a South African harbour, so it moves with the oil price and the rand. News reports say oil traded above $100 a barrel for most of September and link that to the war in the Middle East. The department says higher international prices drove most of the R3.33 increase.
Tax and levies: R7.46 a litre, or about 25%. The largest is the fuel levy at R4.29, which includes a 19c carbon levy and brings Treasury around R80 billion a year. The Road Accident Fund levy is R2.25, up 7c in the February 2026 Budget even though the fund has owed far more than it has for years. The slate levy of 88c pays back a shortfall that builds up when petrol is sold for less than it cost to bring in. At the end of August that account stood at R10.5 billion in the red.
Getting it to you: R5.36 a litre, or about 18%. The fuel station gets R3.20, an amount set by the department rather than the owner. Oil companies get a wholesale margin of 67c, storage and delivery add 58c, and 91c covers moving fuel from the coast to Gauteng. That transport cost is the main reason petrol at the coast is 87c cheaper, at R29.38. None of this part goes to the government.
The levy is not a road fund
Gavin Kelly of the Road Freight Association has said the fuel levy is not going to road building, and that roads outside Sanral’s network keep getting worse. The money goes into the same national pot as income tax, which in 2026 pays for R2.67 trillion of government spending, from social grants to interest on debt.
Only one portion can be traced. By law, 23% of the fuel levy is shared with the 8 big metros for road maintenance, which came to around R16 billion this year, with Johannesburg alone receiving close to R4.7 billion. Municipalities outside those 8 metros receive none of that share, and for the rest of the levy nobody can say how much of the R4.29 ever fixes a pothole.
Sasol will not save you
A common answer to high prices is that South Africa should make its own fuel. Sasol says its plants at Secunda and Sasolburg supply about 30% of what the country uses. The Reserve Bank says the country’s refining capacity has halved over the past 10 years and that more than half of its fuel is now imported.
For motorists, the source makes no difference. Because the price is regulated, petrol from Sasol costs exactly the same at the pump as imported petrol. The Reserve Bank found that the refinery closures had no direct effect on the pump price, because the formula already charges as if every litre came from overseas. The formula decides the price, and the formula belongs to the ANC-led government.
The R1,000 fill, recalculated
Using the same R1,000 fill as the video, with the official October 2026 figures for 95 petrol in Gauteng, R1,000 buys about 33 litres. Of that R1,000, R576 is fuel, R177 pays for getting it to you, and R247 is tax and levies. The R247 breaks down into R142 fuel levy, R74 Road Accident Fund levy, R29 slate levy and R2 in small duties and rounding.
| Part of a R1,000 fill | His video | October 2026 |
| The fuel itself | R480 (48%) | R576 (58%) |
| Getting it to you | R180 (18%) | R177 (18%) |
| Tax and levies | R340 (34%) | R247 (25%) |
| Tax and levies per litre | R7.39 | R7.46 |
| Fuel per litre | R10.33 | R17.44 |
The middle part has hardly moved. The tax share fell, but not because tax went down: tax and levies rose from R7.39 to R7.46 a litre. They are a fixed amount per litre, so as the fuel gets more expensive they become a smaller share of the total.
Fair, or taxed to death?
Some motorists who live near Botswana cross the border to fill up, and truckers have done the same. In March 2026, Kelly said this is legal as long as only the fuel in the tank is brought back. In early October, fuel price trackers listed 93 petrol in Botswana at P18.21 a litre, roughly R21.40, which is about R8.50 less than 93 petrol in Gauteng at R29.88.
Part of that gap is temporary. In April 2026, Botswana’s President Duma Boko suspended all 3 of the country’s fuel levies for 6 months. Together they are worth about R2.90 a litre, so even with them restored Botswana’s petrol would still be about R5.60 cheaper. South Africa’s Road Accident Fund levy alone, at R2.25, comes close to Botswana’s entire levy bill. Botswana does also use a government fund to soften price increases, so its residents carry part of the cost through other taxes.
Counting all taxes and levies together, they make up about 12% of the petrol price in the United States, according to the US Energy Information Administration for May 2026, and about 12% in Botswana when its levies are charged. In South Africa the figure is about 25%, roughly double. Europe taxes petrol far harder, at about 47% of the average price in the European Union in September 2026 and around half the price in the United Kingdom. Next to Europe, South Africans are not taxed to death. Next to the US and Botswana, they pay about double. Europeans, however, earn far more than most South Africans, so a smaller share here can still hurt more.
When oil drops, the fuel part of the price falls. The R7.46 in levies does not move with it unless the ANC-led government decides to move it, as it did for 3 months this year.
November could be worse
On 7 October 2026, Investec chief economist Annabel Bishop said early data pointed to a petrol increase of about R4.60 a litre in November, which would take 95 petrol in Gauteng to about R34.85. She attributed more than R4 of that to international prices and about 50c to a weaker rand. It is an early estimate, and the rest of October can still change it.
“There are currently no interventions planned due in part to the ongoing volatility in petroleum product prices.”
Minister Gwede Mantashe
The ANC calls on itself
On the same day the new price took effect, the ANC Study Group on Minerals and Petroleum Resources in Parliament issued a statement on the increase, which the ANC in Parliament posted on its official X account that morning.
“While global prices are outside government’s control, the taxes and levies within the fuel price are not.”
ANC Study Group on Minerals and Petroleum Resources, 7 October 2026
The study group called on National Treasury to urgently reconsider the fuel levies and taxes, including the General Fuel Levy and the Road Accident Fund Levy, to provide immediate relief to workers, commuters and households. It also said it trusts that oil prices will ease and the rand will strengthen so that motorists get relief in the November adjustment.
Those levies are set by Finance Minister Godongwana, an ANC minister. The fuel price formula sits with Minister Mantashe, also of the ANC, who has said no interventions are planned. The ANC is asking an ANC minister to cut a tax an ANC minister sets, while another ANC minister says no help is coming. Many people who read the statement saw it as a joke. Its MPs have now confirmed in writing that the levies are the one part of the price the ANC-led government can change on its own.
An empty reserve
Minister Mantashe has told Parliament that the country holds 6.9 million barrels of strategic crude oil, about 30 days of supply for local refineries. Because those refineries make only part of what South Africa uses, the reserve would last less than 2 weeks measured against total daily fuel use.
Part of the reason the tanks are so low is a sale. Between December 2015 and January 2016, while Tina Joemat-Pettersson of the ANC was Energy Minister, the Strategic Fuel Fund sold 10 million barrels of the country’s emergency crude without a public tender. In November 2020, the Western Cape High Court set those sales aside as unlawful and invalid.
Even full tanks would not lower the price, because the reserve is crude oil and the formula charges the overseas price for finished petrol wherever it comes from. In March 2026, Raphi Maake of the Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources said using the reserve too early could weaken long-term energy security. A draft policy would require the state to hold 60 days of reserves and fuel companies another 21 days. It remains a draft.
What it comes down to
The R10 figure was never a pump price. In October 2026 the fuel costs R17.44 a litre and the levies cost R7.46, and the R7.46 is the part the ANC-led government has to answer for. It cut that levy once already this year, and its own MPs are now asking it to do so again.
Sources
- Department of Mineral and Petroleum Resources media statement on fuel price changes from 7 October 2026
- Stats SA (December 2021)
- National Treasury statements on 2026 fuel levy relief
- South African Reserve Bank
- Sasol
- Road Freight Association
- Investec (7 October 2026)
- US Energy Information Administration
- European Commission Weekly Oil Bulletin
- ANC Study Group on Minerals and Petroleum Resources statement, posted by @ANCParliament on X, 7 October 2026
