President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe said on Friday his government will no longer procure fuel for the country, a newspaper said. Analysts have dubbed the move an admission of failure of Zimbabwe’s fuel procurement policies.
”The fuel comes in the name of the government. When the fuel comes we are worried about its duration, whether we have enough stocks. And what do we do? We call in multinational companies. They sell and make profits,” the official Herald newspaper quoted Mugabe as telling a gathering of businessmen on Thursday.
He said his government would no longer ”crack” their heads over procuring fuel for resale by foreign companies.
”They must import and not wait for government to do it for them. They have the foreign exchange. In true partnership they should play their part,” he said.
The secretary of economic affairs in the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), Eddie Cross said that Mugabe’s statement was an admission of failure.
”It’s the first significant admission of failure and collapse by the government,” Cross said. He said Mugabe’s statement signalled the government’s ”special relationship with Libya is no longer functioning”.
Zimbabwe currently receives 70% of its fuel imports from Libya. In September the government renewed a deal with the North African country, trading fuel for produce from Zimbabwe.
A front page article on Friday in the private Zimbabwe
Independent newspaper read: ”Libyan fuel deal faces collapse”.
The paper quoted unnamed industry sources as saying Zimbabwe’s $360-million of credit with Libya had ”failed to operate normally because of Zimbabwe’s failure to pay dues on time”.
For nearly three years Zimbabwe has suffered from regular fuel shortages, due to a lack of foreign currency and corruption at the state fuel procurement agency.
The country, which burns 1,2 million litres of petrol and 1,5 million litres of diesel a day, reportedly needs six hundred million US dollars a year to pay for its fuel imports. – Sapa-AFP