Petrol stations need to close shop at night otherwise up to 15% will shut down before year-end, the Fuel Retailers Association (FRA) warned today.
"It is too expensive and too dangerous to stay open at night," said CEO Peter Morgan.
The FRA is now asking its 1 500 members, all of them service station owners, for a mandate to lobby the government to put pressure on oil companies to allow them to close shop at night.
Morgan said it was expensive to keep petrol stations open at night in the current economic environment.
"We are a regulated industry and we can't change our prices. Yet costs are going up and volumes are going down."
High levels of crime
He said high crime rates at petrol stations at night exacerbated the situation.
"We have Automated Teller Machine (ATM) bombings, cash heists and consumers driving off without paying."
Many of the association's members were currently under so much pressure that they were considering closing down.
But if oil companies gave them permission to close their doors at night, it would save their businesses.
"I would rather have service stations survive [by closing at night] than lose between 10 and 15% of service stations by the end of the year," said Morgan.
Petrol stations were bound by their contracts with oil companies to stay open at night. "We closed service stations at night in the 1970s. Why can't we do it again?"
Morgan asked, adding that a few stations could remain open to accommodate motorists on main roads. Morgan said he raised the issue with the Director General of Minerals and Energy and that he was now trying to get a mandate from his members to lobby the government to put pressure on oil companies to change the rules.
"The oil companies have come up with no suggestions [as to how to help struggling service stations], so we'll try and get the government to put pressure on them", he said.
2 Opinion(s):
It is easy to prevent. Go totally self-service as in the US. Customers pay with credit card, and the pumps cannot be operated until payment is made and it will shut down when the amount of fuel paid for has been delivered and attendants can watch the whole sale behind bullet-proof windows where they can report on the customers when necessary
@ anon 11:11
I agree but that would entail a massive refit of all the service stations as the South African ones cater for attendants - a huge source of employment - and the unions would never allow it.
Still they cannot close them either and if 15% must close, then they must close.
Imagine being on a long trip, at night, with wife and kids, in a dark stretch of road running low on fuel, where do you fill up? You cannot stop by the road as that is inviting certain attack and you can't leave the car to go look for petrol nor can you carry fuel in the boot because it gets overheated, nevermind the fumes.
Unfortunately, in SA, the crime situation is such that petrol stations are a life and death need.
Post a Comment