JOHANNESBURG (miningweekly.com) – It must be appreciated that the current high price of fuel is a function of the war in the Middle East and South Africans must work together in confronting the major impact that this high price is having on the South African economy, Mineral Resources and Petroleum Minister Gwede Mantashe urged during the final speech on the final day of this week’s vibrant Joburg Indaba.

Mantashe expressed the wish to address the high fuel price issue amid the South African government being blamed for something that the South African government had not brought about. (Also watch attached Creamer Media video.)

Regarding the dozen WhatsApp group discussions in which he partakes daily, he said: “I go to everyone, every day, and people will blame government for the price of fuel, and I was saying to members of my party, don't own something that’s not yours.

“We must appreciate that the price of fuel is a function of the war in the Middle East, and that is not a local war. The Strait of Hormuz happens to be located there, and every time a barrel of oil costs more than $100, you must know that we’re going to see that in the pump,” Mantashe pointed out at the Joburg Indaba event covered by Mining Weekly.

When appealing to the government to soften the fuel price blow, what also had to be appreciated was the impact of the price of oil on the rand-dollar exchange rate.

Mantashe advocated requesting the government to cushion the fuel price and let it be known that this had been under way since the Russia/Ukraine conflict and also during the current Middle East war. But he urged that when doing so, price cushioning should not be taken as an entitlement but something that the State must do in sympathy with citizens, "and the citizens must appreciate that”.

“Once it becomes entitlement, Bernard,” a reference to Bernard Swanepoel, the chair of the Joburg Indaba event, “we're walking on a very dangerous route, because everything becomes a right.

"We must remember that if we take money from the fiscus to cushion the price of petroleum, there's something that we are going to give up, because for every rand you spend on something else, it’s in exchange for something else you could have spent it on, and our people must appreciate that very well, and appreciate that it is a disaster facing the country and that we must work together in confronting it.

“I must go and basically kneel in front of the Minister of Finance and beg him, ‘but listen, you can tamper with the fuel levy, you can tamper with that, please let's cushion it’ – a relatively difficult Minister, by the way.

“I do go to him and tell him listen, brother of mine – and I become very soft – let's put some money aside, but when I do that, I don't do that because people are entitled to it.

“I do it because I understand that it’s contributing to the rising cost of living, and it’s our responsibility to explain to our people that it is something out of our control. We are intervening in this issue that’s a disaster facing us,” Mantashe explained.