Maravi

Fuel shortage may be a ploy - Yaluma

Fuel shortage may be a ploy - Yaluma
By Misheck Wangwe in Chambishi and Abigail Chaponda in Ndola
Fri 13 July 2012, 10:00 CAT

MINES and energy minister Christopher Yaluma says fuel shortages in some parts of the country could be a political ploy by some individuals within the system that want to undermine the government.

Speaking in Chambishi yesterday, Yaluma said possibilities of some partisan individuals playing tricks to make it seem the government was not working could not be ruled out. He said there were individuals wanting to undermine the government to gain political mileage.

"As far as government is concerned, the country has enough fuel stocks. There is a riddle that needs to be undone. There is something seriously wrong with the system," Yaluma said.

He said the ministry would investigate the matter and rectify the problem, saying the pockets of fuel shortages were unacceptable.
Livingstone, Chipata, Katete and Petauke have in the past few days experienced fuel shortages which energy permanent secretary George Zulu has blamed on distributional challenges by oil marketing companies.

Yaluma said he had meetings with all OMCs and all executives in the fuel supply chain and the government was assured that there were no problems in the system.
"After the elections you know what has been happening, some people want to gain political mileage on anything and fuel shortage in some parts is not an exception.

I went to Southern Province on Sunday, from Kafue to Livingstone unannounced and there was no shortage except for one filling station but we don't know where this problem is coming from. That's why I am going to Indeni myself to check and establish the truth," said Yaluma.

And Zulu maintained that the artificial fuel shortages in some parts of the country were due to distributional hiccups.

In an interview yesterday, Zulu said the country had plenty of fuel and that there was no need for people to panic.

"There is a lot of fuel in the country. Indeni is refining and Tazama is pumping. Yesterday (Wednesday), Tazama released 2.1 million litres of petrol and 2.5 million litres of diesel on the market. And this is a lot because per day the country uses 800,000 for both petrol and diesel.

The challenge that we are facing is the hand to mouth approach straight from Indeni, we start using because we don't have enough oil reserve tanks," he said. "We are sure that once the reserve tanks that are under construction are finished, we will stop having these shortages. In Lusaka, the 25 million litre oil tank is almost finished. We are almost halfway for the one in Mpika."

Zulu said the government had engaged the Zambia National Service to construct the Mongu fuel tank.

Labels: FUEL

posted by MrK @ 2:02 PM