Equatorial Guinea has begun supplying fuel-starved Zimbabwe with oil at favourable terms for an unspecified period, Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe said.
”They are providing us with crude oil at favourable terms. We only have to pay after every three months,” Mugabe said on Wednesday night in Windhoek during a meeting with about 100 Zimbabweans living in Namibia.
Mugabe, on a four-day state visit to the south-western African nation, said Equatorial Guinea had sent one oil consignment to Zimbabwe, which is mired in a deepening economic crisis marked by chronic shortages of food and fuel.
He did not specify how much fuel had been provided.
The 83-year-old Zimbabwean leader, who is facing growing political unrest at home, is due on Friday to fly to Equatorial Guinea, one of a few countries friendly to his government.
Securing a steady supply of oil from the Central African nation, sub-Saharan Africa’s third largest petroleum producer, is a priority for Mugabe’s cash-strapped government.
Western sanctions and the loss of aid from the International Monetary Fund and other donor agencies have exacerbated a foreign exchange crunch in Zimbabwe, leaving it struggling to pay for food and oil imports.
Industry officials have said that the Southern African nation needs to secure about $120-million worth of fuel a month to comfortably meet its requirements and to start building crucial strategic reserves.
Zimbabwe also needs to find additional funding to finance the renovation of its aging power generating stations.
Namibia’s state power utility agreed on Wednesday to provide a $40-million loan to refurbish Zimbabwe’s Hwange power station in a deal that will see Hwange provide 150 megawatts of power annually to Namibia for five years.
Mugabe’s visit to Namibia was his first foreign trip since his government imposed a three-month ban on political rallies and protests in volatile townships in the capital Harare after clashes between police and opposition supporters.
Anti-Mugabe groups have described the move as effectively a ”state of emergency” designed to stifle the opposition. – Reuters