The numbers are now official and they are on every price board in the country. Petrol 95 at the coast: R22.53 per litre. Petrol 95 inland: R23.36 per litre. Diesel 0.05%: up R7.37 per litre at wholesale. [1] These are the April 2026 fuel prices for South Africa, effective since midnight on Wednesday, April 1. They are the largest monthly increases in more than a decade. And the forecasters are already saying May will be worse. [2]

As this paper reported when the April shock first arrived and again when the full scale of the worst monthly hike became clear, the mechanism is mechanical: South Africa imports virtually all of its refined petroleum, the Basic Fuel Price formula follows global crude with a two-to-four-week lag, and when Brent crude crosses $100 per barrel because a war has closed the Strait of Hormuz, the bill arrives at the pump in Soweto, Khayelitsha, and every filling station in between.

The government's temporary R3-per-litre fuel levy reduction, announced by Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana, took effect alongside the price increase. [3] Without it, the petrol increase would have been approximately R6 per litre — a figure that would have pushed coastal petrol past R25. The levy cut costs the Treasury approximately R4.5 billion for the month of April. It expires on May 5 unless extended. [1]

The diesel story is the sharper blade. Diesel received no levy relief. The R7.37 per litre wholesale increase flows unmediated into every supply chain in the economy. Trucks that deliver food from farms in the Free State to supermarkets in Johannesburg run on diesel. The minibus taxis that move 15 million commuters daily run on diesel. The generators that compensate for residual Eskom load-shedding run on diesel. When diesel rises by R7 in a month, the cost propagates through food prices, transport fares, and electricity costs within weeks. [4]

The South African Automobile Association estimated that filling a 50-litre tank now costs approximately R275 to R300 more than it did in March. [3] For a household that fills twice monthly, the direct fuel cost increase is R550 to R600. For households in the lowest income quintile — where transport consumes a larger share of income and there are no alternatives to minibus taxis — the proportional impact is larger. The indirect impact, through food and goods inflation, has not yet been priced.

The question now is May. The Central Energy Fund's mid-cycle data, published weekly, uses a rolling average of international petroleum prices with a lag. April's prices reflected late-February and March crude. May's prices will reflect late-March and April crude — the period during which Brent surged from $100 to $106 following Trump's prime-time war address. [2] TopAuto's forecast, published Wednesday, projected that May fuel prices could see further increases of R1 to R2 per litre for petrol and another R2 to R3 for diesel if crude does not retreat below $100 by mid-April. [5]

The government faces a fiscal trap. If it extends the levy cut beyond May 5, the foregone revenue compounds — R4.5 billion per month is R54 billion annualized, roughly 1.5 percent of total government revenue. If it lets the levy cut expire, the full unsubsidized increase hits consumers in May, on top of the April shock. Neither option is sustainable if the war continues and oil stays above $100.

The political arithmetic is unforgiving. South Africa had no say in the war. No South African combatants are deployed. No South African alliance obligation was invoked. The Strait of Hormuz is 9,000 kilometers from Cape Town. But the price of a litre of petrol in Johannesburg is set by the same global oil market that the war has disrupted, and the rand's weakness against the dollar — past R19 in March — amplifies every dollar of crude price increase by the time it reaches the pump.

On X, South African users have been posting photographs of fuel receipts, price boards, and long queues at filling stations where motorists rushed to fill up before the April 1 increase. The framing is consistent: this is not a South African crisis. This is a war tax levied by Washington on the Global South. The comparison is imperfect — South Africa's fuel pricing problems predate the war, rooted in refinery closures and rand depreciation. But the scale of the April increase is attributable to Hormuz.

R22.53 per litre. May will be worse. The war's architects will not see this bill.

-- DARA OSEI, London