Mercedes Sayagues
Zimbabwe’s fuel woes eased slightly on Tuesday when 10-million litres of diesel, expected to last less than three days, began arriving on the Beira pipeline.
More diesel waits at Beira in Mozambique but will not be released unless the state oil procurement agency, Noczim, pays up front. Suppliers have cut credit lines to the corruption-racked Noczim over its Z$9- billion debt.
Petrol is also dwindling, with less than three days’ supply left. Stations have been rationing petrol since Tuesday at 20 litres per customer.
Drivers of commuter buses and 4x4s wait at Harare’s main depot, follow diesel tankers as they leave, and pass the information on to colleagues via cellphones. The few stations that have diesel call the riot police before announcing it.
Queues stretch for miles, causing traffic jams and fights. Bus fleets have been grounded, passengers stranded, cargo undelivered. In Harare, workers wait up to three hours to catch a bus. Some commuters get up at 4am, stake a place in the queue, perhaps by leaving an older child, and go back to sleep for a couple of hours.
Operating at a loss, fuel filling stations are working short hours and considering lay-offs.
Shops have run out of jerrycans. Rubbish lies uncollected. Milk deliveries are down. Tobacco farmers are bringing in the harvest – but not for long. Many farmers have only half their trucks working.
A flower exporter, desperate to get a consignment of roses to the airport, has filled his refrigerated trucks with half paraffin and half diesel. Many commuter buses, trucks and tractors have done the same. Paraffin, the cooking fuel of the poor, costs one-third the price of diesel.
Private sector oil companies cannot step in to import fuel because of controlled fuel prices and a shortage of foreign exchange. To make imports profitable, prices should rise by at least 25%. A rise in the price of fuel would trigger price hikes across the economy and possibly, in their wake, riots.
The government dreads such a scenario so close to the constitutional referendum on February 12 and parliamentary elections scheduled for March. How a referendum can be logistically organised without fuel has not been debated.
Even if Noczim arranges credit lines, the fuel supply will take months to be restored. The economic consequences are dire. The Zimbabwe Tobacco Association, whose product is the country’s main agricultural export, warns of problems in ploughing an estimated 90E000ha in March.
President Robert Mugabe denied there was a fuel crisis last week when he headed out of the country, for Libya and the United States. People are hoarding, he said. If only.