Loss of business due to alleged negligence

What should have been a regular trip to the petrol station turned into a nightmare for business owner Tanya Rose.

Rose alleges a petrol attendant at Sasol in Ruimsig filled her car with petrol instead of diesel, damaging her delivery vehicle

Rose is based in Ruimsig and works in catering equipment.

She said she has to spend approximately R42 000 to get her vehicle fixed.

“Our business has been without a delivery truck since 3 July and it is costing me daily. I have not been able to give the service my clients are used to because we are short a delivery vehicle”, said Rose.

The owner of Sasol in Ruimsig, Vijay Ramlukan, said it’s difficult for them to accept that the damage to Rose’s vehicle was due to the contamination of petrol at their filling station.

“If there was no reasonable doubt that the damage to her vehicle was because of petrol contamination at our filling station, we would gladly accept responsibility and help with the expenses of repairing the vehicle”, said Ramlukan.

Ramlukan said Rose only experienced problems with her car after driving more than 700 km after filling her vehicle with fuel from his petrol station. “Several problems could have caused the engine failure of her vehicle, to start with, the vehicle is old”, said Ramlukan.

A report from Bio Services on a sample of fuel sent to them by Rose revealed that the fuel petrol contamination was at eight percent.

Ramlukan said the contamination could have happened at any filling station; Rose began experiencing car problems more than 10 days after filling at his station.

Efforts to obtain comment from Sasol head office proved fruitless and the National Consumer Forum had not responded to questions sent to them at the time of going to press.