Finance Minister Mthuli Ncube says government has moved to significantly reduce licence fees, permits and levies across the energy sub-sector as part of ongoing reforms aimed at improving the ease of doing business and lowering costs for consumers.
Speaking during the review announcement, Minister Ncube said the adjustments target three key areas — electricity, the liquid fuel sector, and the gas sector. He said the reductions were designed to ease the regulatory burden on businesses and stimulate participation, especially among young and female entrepreneurs.
“Here, we’re looking at three key areas — electricity, the fuel sector, and the gas sector,” he said.
Among the major changes is a cut in fuel retail licensing fees in urban areas, which drop from US$500 to US$400, while rural fuel retail licences have been reduced sharply from US$200 to US$50.
The Minister said government had also halved ethanol production and vending licence fees, and removed the LPG licence requirement, which previously cost US$200.
“We expect this to impact youth and female entrepreneurs positively, because they participate in this sector quite a bit. These are just examples of the reductions that have taken place,” Ncube said.
He added that lowering regulatory fees should help reduce the cost build-up in the fuel and energy value chain.
“Surely, we expect this to have an impact on the final prices. We don’t want to dictate those, but the expectation is that if these regulatory fees are reduced, the final prices for consumers would also come down,” he said.
Ncube said government would continue monitoring developments and was prepared to take further steps if needed to support additional price reductions in the energy sector.
“We’ll watch this space, and if we need to do more to trigger further decreases in fuel pricing, we will be able to try to impact that in that way,” he added.
The reduction of fees marks another phase in the government’s push to streamline regulation, attract investment and ease operational hurdles in the energy industry.
