GRZ is currently importing expensive finished petroleum products through tankers hired by foreign suppliers Trafigura and Dalbit. According to Energy Minister Christopher Yaluma the arrangement is because Indeni Petroleum Refinery, Zambia's sole crude oil refinery is obsolete. Yaluma says, "Indeni has outlived its usefulness and cannot meet the country's demand. In fact, it is running obsolete and all we are doing is that we are pushing it along; otherwise its production capacity has fallen more than three fold" (Source: Daily Nation)
Garry Nkombo MP has advised GRZ to liberalise the energy market and allow more people to supply fuel if the cost of the commodity is to reduce. He believes the solution to fuel challenges lies in government allowing anyone to bring in the commodity without surcharging the 25 percent import levy. (Source : FlavaFM)
Energy Minister Christopher Yaluma says there is no need for panic over fuel running dry and prices immediately going up amid the weakening kwacha. Yaluma says, "there is no way in the immediate term the depreciation of the kwacha is going to impact the fuel, but should the Kwacha fall persist, then there could be some adjustment". The government is currently not passing on the cost of a weaker Kwacha to consumers, effectively subsiding the commodity. (Source: The Post)
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