DURBAN - Visvin Reddy, from the organisation, Papppi (People Against Petrol and PARAFIN Price Increases), released a statement yesterday calling on President Cyril Ramaphosa and the NPA to launch an investigation into the sale of South Africa's crude oil reserves.
Papppi were recently in the spotlight for protesting the increase in the prices of petrol in South Africa.
Reddy attributes the increase in the prices of fuel to the sale of South Africa's crude oil reserves. According to Reddy, the prices of fuel increased because South Africa has no crude oil reserves to fall back on.
At the time of the sale, the then Minister of Energy Tina Joemat-Petersson denied that the crude oil reserves had been sold. Then the current Minister of Energy (Mmamoloko Kubayi) revealed that indeed South Africa's crude oil reserves had been sold.
Reddy also spoke about what needs to be done in order to sort out the matter.
This is what he said:
1. The President needs to institute a commission of inquiry into the matter
2. The then Minister of Energy Tina Joemat-Pettersson needs to be charged and held accountable.
3. All the people that were involved in the sale need to be charged and they need to be held accountable.
4. The person that signed off on the sale of the crude oil reserves also needs to be charged and also held accountable.
Business Report reached out to the Department of Energy who referred us to a statement on their website. In a statement to rebut an article by Business Day journalist The Department of said that the Minister (Mahlobo) had not abandoned the investigation and that the probe would continue including interviewing the people that were involved.
The above mentioned statement was dated 20 February 2018.
The Department of Energy also referred me to the Central Energy Fund. After contacting the CEF spokesperson Jack Mashapu via email he responded with the following statement, "Your mail is noted. This matter is before the court. We are not going to engage further on it".
On the President's plan to introduce economic measures to ease the strain on consumers caused by the increase in fuel and VAT, Reddy said that he welcomes the President's plan.
He added that he hopes to meet with the President before the national shutdown strike on July 27th.
Business Report did try to contact the NPA for comment but they did not get back to us.
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