eBusiness Weekly
HARARE – Government owes fuel suppliers a substantial amount of foreign currency, a situation which at times disrupts supplies, Energy and Power Development Minister Simon Khaya-Moyo said on Monday.
Appearing before the Parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Mines andEnergy, Khaya- Moyo said the government debt to suppliers usually resulted in sporadic fuel shortages. He did not however disclose how much the authorities owed.
“The country is facing a challenge of sporadic localised fuel supply shortages where some service stations may at one time lack one or both diesel and petrol,” he said.
“We are monitoring the situation very closely and we believe that this shortage is emanating from companies which are supposed to be supplying us fuel but are owed a lot of money in terms of foreign currency and they, I believe sometimes apply some screws deliberately in order to get their monies.
The minister said government was moving to open up the fuel sector to allow more suppliers to operate.
“There are too many monopolies and they can do anything to bring down Government. We want to open up so that there is competition in this area,” he said.
Khaya-Moyo added: “We will discuss this with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe Governor (Dr John Mangudya) and Ministry of Finance and we are trying to address this issue by perhaps opening up the sector.”
He said opening up the sector would result in a reduction of the price of fuel. Experts in the sector are however pushing government to revise a number of taxes imposed on fuel imports which contribute to making the product more expensive when compared with other countries in the region.
The different taxes add up to nearly half the price of the retail cost of the commodity which is currently ranging between $1, 39 to $1, 41 for petrol and $1, 28 to $1, 35 for diesel. – New Ziana
