By Cathy Maulidi
Minister of Information and Digitalisation Moses Kunkuyu has attributed the problem of fuel shortage to unsettled amounts owed to fuel suppliers and forex (FX) shortage.
Addressing journalists in Lilongwe Wednesday, Kunkuyu said due to the unsettled bills, suppliers had resorted to suspending fuel supplies to Malawi for 10 days, a move that disrupted the fuel supply chain.
“The country’s fuel suppliers suspended [for 10 days] loading of petroleum products by National Oil Company of Malawi (Nocma) and Petroleum Importers Limited (PIL) from parts of Beira and Nacala in Mozambique and Dar es Salaam in Tanzania, citing unsettled amounts owed to them.
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“The fuel importers were also unable to secure foreign currency to pay the suppliers, given FX challenges in the country,” Kunkuyu said.
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Kunkuyu—who attributed the problem of forex shortage to the Covid pandemic, which ravaged the world and Malawi—said the country was yet to fully recover from the scourge.
He said Malawi needed $51 million for fuel every month.
Kunkuyu was quick to say the government was not sleeping on the problem, stating that it was doing everything possible to deal with it.
“There are some immediate measures to restore normalcy that government is implementing. For instance, on forex allocation, the Malawi foreign exchange authorities have allocated $21.5 million to fuel importers to pay fuel suppliers and authorise fuel loadings to take place,” Kunkuyu said.
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He added that based on this FX allocation, fuel importers had secured 26.9 million litres (17.8 million litres for Nocma and 9.1 million litres for PIL) for Malawi.
“Twenty-nine trucks (1.1 million litres) of petrol have already arrived in Malawi by road (1,009,000 million litres for Nocma and148,000 litres for PIL) and are in-transit. They have delayed due to the Chiweta Road, which was damaged. 30 wagons (1.2 million litres) imported by Nocma by rail wagons from Nacala are also in-transit,” Kunkuyu said.
According to Kunkuyu, also in transit are 150 trucks (5.7 million litres) of petrol (4.9 million litres for Nocma and 740,000 litres for PIL).
“We are also expecting nine trucks (350,000 litres) of diesel by PIL.
“We are also expecting 144 trucks (5.5 million litres) of petrol, which has already been secured and [the trucks] are currently being loaded in Beira and Dar es Salaam. We are also expecting 100 trucks (3.8 million litres) of diesel secured and currently loading in Dar es Salaam. Also 23 wagons are being loaded and they contain 800,000 litres of diesel,” he said.
Kunkuyu said based on the above progress, fuel importers were of the opinion that the fuel supply situation would normalise by the forthcoming weekend.
Kunkuyu said the government was also in talks with Badea to source forex that would help settle amounts due to suppliers and get more fuel.
“Through the Badea financing facility, discussions are in progress to get ($50 million) and, in the morning, the Minister of Energy [Ibrahim Matola] told me that further discussions are being done to get the financing increased to $100 million,” the government spokesperson said.
Also speaking at the press conference, Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority Chief Executive Officer Henry Kachaje said panic buying of fuel was exacerbating the situation.
“In the past, we used to release one million litres of diesel and petrol and that could be enough but, now, people are flocking to the stations to fill full tanks when they couldn’t have done that on a normal day. So, panic buying has also contributed to the situation,” Kachaje said.
On his part, Nocma Chief Executive Officer Clement Kanyama said when the tobacco selling season closes, they struggle with the forex supply issue.
He was quick to say tankers were being offloaded at stations.
“The situation is normalising,” he said.
