Industry remained in the dark about the proposed carbon tax, Gavin Kelly, spokesman for the Road Freight Association, told FTW. “We are expecting the tax to be announced in the 2018 budget,” he said. This comes after the proposed tax only received a cursory mention in the 2017 budget speech. “Present indications are that it will be around R1.40 per litre of fuel, but that is just an estimate. Nothing has been officially communicated.” He said from a business point of view the lack of communication – especially in the current economic circumstances – was worrying. “Industry has costs coming but they have no idea what those costs are going to be.” He said the carbon tax levies remained a sore point, as the funds were not being ring-fenced. “We are going to pay a carbon tax that is not going to be used to improve the country’s carbon footprint. It is just a generator of funds and operators will have no recourse to rebate or to minimise the effect they will feel from this levy.”
