LIVINGSTONE MARUFU
The Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe has laid out a $100 million fuel plan for October in an effort to ease supply gaps that are mainly due to the slow release of foreign currency to purchase the precious liquid.
If put into action, the plan will result in increased fuel supplies, whose demand now stands between 120 million and 140 million litres.
Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe governor John Mangudya told Business Times in a telephone interview from New York that the central bank has upped fuel allocations to meet the petroleum challenges.
Mangudya is part of the Zimbabwean delegation attending the UN General Assembly in New York, United States.
“We have upped our weekly foreign currency allocations for fuel to $25 million this week from last week’s $20 million in a bid to cover the gap and ensure that there are adequate supplies in the market.
“We were importing between 30 million litres and 35 million litres all along but given the recent shortages we have increased fuel importations to 40 million litres as we move to end acute fuel shortages.
“We are hoping to do these $25 million weekly allocations during the month of October until there are no shortages,” said Mangudya.
The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority confirmed that from the current logistics on the ground, the country has started importing an average of 2,6 million litres of diesel and an average of 1,6 million litres of petrol daily.
Mangudya said the only way to avert the current shortages was to flood the fuel on the market to show the consumers that there is no need for hoarding as the central bank will continue to import more than adequate fuel in the market.
RBZ hopes that suppliers will not encounter logistical challenges of collecting fuel from Msasa Depot (in Harare) as fuel for the next week has already been paid for.
RBZ usually allocates $20 million foreign currency for fuel per week on Mondays or Tuesdays but has increased allocation by 25 percent to ensure the supply gap is covered.
Since May this year, Government doubled foreign currency allocation to fuel suppliers from $10 million to $20 million per week to ensure constant supplies.
Meanwhile, government has already assured the public that there was no need to panic as fuel dealers were already transporting the product into the country, with the supply situation expected to normalise soon.
A survey carried out by Business Times showed that fuel was available at some outlets, while unscrupulous black market dealers had hiked prices, taking advantage of shortages at the pump.
Around Harare, diesel was delivered to some garages on Monday, while a number of service stations were expecting adequate petrol supply from Thursday going forward.
Some garages are now capitalising on these shortages and have started demanding cash transactions.
Petrotrade, which had no fuel for the better part of last week started selling fuel this week
