Zimbabwe’s Petroleum Marketers’ Association (PMA) has opened tenders for the supply of petrol and diesel.
The latest move comes as fuel queues snake through Harare’s streets while motorists wait patiently for fuel.
The PMA said on Tuesday it is tendering for the monthly supply of 24-million litres of petrol and 26-million litres of diesel, with supplies expected to flow from January. The tender will close on December 16.
The tender is the latest plan in a saga that has seen the country reel under sporadic fuel shortages since economic decline began in 2000.
An official in the PMA, who declined to be named, said: ”The situation is such that come next year there should be no periodic stock-outs as we are experiencing at the moment.”
Meanwhile, commuter taxi driver John Takawira said: ”We are tired of this nonsense. This week there is diesel but no petrol, last week there was petrol but no diesel. It is impossible to plan and impossible to make money.”
Retired office worker Mishek Mubaya, waiting on a roadside in Harare’s Avondale suburb, said: ”It’s ridiculous, and all the government does is tell us lies, promising that fuel supplies will return to normal.
”We know now that when they return to normal it will be for a week, no more, then it will run out again. Thousands of us will be trying to go home to our villages for Christmas. How are we going to get there if there is no fuel?”
Mubaya, waiting for a lift to a city-centre bank, said a trip that normally took him 20 minutes now takes most of the morning because of the fuel shortage.
”There are too few taxis,” he said. ”They’re all in petrol queues. Thank you, [President Robert] Mugabe.”
Zimbabwe’s national fuel bill has dropped to about $30-million a month, down from $40-million a month before economic and political crisis hit the country in 2000, sparked by farm invasions and electoral violence. — Sapa