Govt assures of fuel availability

Government has assured the nation that fuel situation will normalize starting from today, Friday, across the country.

Minister of Information and Digitalization Moses Kunkuyu, accompanied by Minister of Energy, Ibrahim Matola, and National Oil Company of Malawi (Nocma) Chief Executive, Clement Chinyama, made assurance during a press conference in Lilongwe that the country is expecting huge amount of fuel especially petrol.

protected by reCAPTCHA

Nkukuyu said by Monday next week, the country should be moving towards stabilizing the supplies of fuel mainly petrol.

“We do have cover for diesel but petrol we have really hit the bottom but the assurance is that there are imports that are coming in during the weekend and hoping by Monday motorists should be able to draw from tanks without any problems,” he said.

This is the beginning of stabilization from the situation although there are still some challenges but government is looking for a number of avenues through which can ensure that there is a stable supply of fuel in the country, he said.

Kunkuyu said one of the solutions is the way they handle logistics, transportation because the country needs 50 tankers to adequately supply for a day consumption.

“When using a rail, the capacity of those tankers can be handled by one haulage of rail,” he explained.

Minister of Energy, Ibrahim Matola, said there will be a change of fuel supply as government is committed to address the fuel situation through short, medium and long term solutions.

“The most important thing is availability, accessibility and reliability of fuel,” he said.

Nocma CEO, Clement Kanyama said Malawi is living in a situation described as hand to mouth because when fuel comes from Beira it goes straight to consumers coupled with global economic crisis, scarcity of foreign currency.

“We have now resorted to open credit facility with our suppliers and from Monday people will be able to see availability of fuel,” he said.

Kanyama disclosed that a volume of 2.2million litres from Beira is expected in the country by Monday, 4.5m litres from Dar es salaam while 2.8million litres from Nacala.