As we went to press last evening, around Balaka town, only one filling station, Petroda Filling Station at Chingeni, had fuel.
The town has six filling stations.
And at the time scores of motorists scrummed at the Balaka filling station on the arrival of a fuel tanker in the afternoon, Jean Mathanga, Minister of Energy, was addressing the press in Blantyre where she assured the nation that fuel supply would stablise across the country by Tuesday next week.
“We are getting out of the critical stage as we should be having enough fuel by Tuesday,” she said.
“We have concluded payments to our suppliers. Currently 243 trucks have been loaded and 143 trucks are already in transit to Malawi,” Mathanga said.
- Advertisement -
Flanked by Minister of Information, Shadric Namalomba, acting CEO for Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) Dad Chithambi and other technical directors, Mathanga said the situation reached this critical stage because, alongside the Iran- Israel and US conflict that has disrupted fuel supply, the government was not able to pay suppliers due to forex shortage.
Now, she said, government has secured enough foreign exchange for fuel purchases.
On proposals for the government to adopt government-to-government fuel procurement process, Mathanga said that the government abandoned it because the system required huge amounts of forex.
On April 1, Mera hiked fuel prices from K4,965 to K6,672 per litre for petrol and K4,945 to K6,687 per litre for diesel.
- Advertisement -
- Advertisement -
But fuel supply has been intermittent since and Malawians have felt the impact.
“We thought the rise in prices was meant to ensure regular fuel supply. So we are suffering twice: we are struggling to find fuel that we will buy at a high price when we find it,” said a motorist, Alison Mmora, who was queuing at Petroda Filling Station in Limbe Friday.
“Whatever the justification for the high prices, at least let’s have the fuel; so we are looking forward to Tuesday. Hopefully, a few things can calm down once fuel supply normalizes,” said Mmora, who operates a taxi.
Back in Balaka, at the height of fuel scarcity in the week, the price of fuel on the black market went as high as K15,000 per litre and bus fares rose sharply, from K5,000 to K8,000 from Balaka to Mangochi Turnoff while Balaka to Chingeni now costed K2,500 from K1,500.
