President Robert Mugabe’s government said on Thursday it was deregulating the country’s fuel distribution system, but industry officials said the move would only legalise the black market fuel system controlled by ruling Zanu-PF party loyalists.
The daily Herald newspaper quoted Deputy Energy Minister Reuben Marumahoko as saying that the country’s private sector ”will be importing its own fuel for service stations”, while the government-owned fuel procurer would import fuel for state departments.
However, economists said the announcement only deepened the chaos surrounding the country’s fuel situation, which has been in critical short supply for nearly four years as the government ran out of foreign exchange to pay.
Ruling party members have apparently been importing fuel and openly selling it for the last two months at about four times the official controlled price per litre, without any attempt by the government to prosecute them. The official controlled price for petrol is Z$450 (about R4,30) per litre and diesel Z$200 (about R1,90) a litre.
However, multinational oil companies — BP, Caltex, Mobil, Shell and Total — who own 90% of service stations around the country would not dare do the same, said James Jowah, an economist for the Zimbabwe National Chamber of Commerce.
”If they tried it, they would be pounced on,” he said.
”The government doesn’t see the violations by the ‘indigenous’ (ruling party) people. They can violate the law because they are on the right side.
”It’s like the farm invasions,” he said.
Mugabe opened Parliament on Monday saying that the state-owned National Oil Company of Zimbabwe would be ”competing with private oil companies in the importation and distribution of fuel”, and a ”duel pricing structure” would be established.
The deputy minister, Marumahoko, said: ”I do not want to say there will be two prices,” he said. ”Fuel will definitely cost the same.”
He said the new system would be established soon.
Jowah said: ”This is already what is happening on the ground, although it is informal. Companies are getting fuel from outside the country and charging about Z$1,700 (about R16) a litre.
”The government is aware of what is going on but it doesn’t want to face the anger of the people over high fuel prices, so it does not do anything about it. They [state departments] are actually buying it from the service stations.”
Changes in legislation last year allowed companies to import oil provided they were issued with a permit, but Jowah confirmed it was still illegal to sell fuel above the controlled price.
Fuel queues that used stretch to most service stations have all but disappeared as multinational-owned service stations say they have received almost no fuel in nearly two months.
The government set up a system last month to issue coupons to allow urban commuter minibuses to buy fuel at controlled prices, but the system proved too unwieldy to implement.
Queues of bus operators jammed government offices for days, while forged coupons were soon on sale in the capital’s crowded townships. – Sapa