‘Don’t panic buy fuel, no shortage’ – Malawi energy body
Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) has dismissed reports suggesting that the country is on the verge of experiencing fuel shortage.
The reports started creating panic among consumers who feared to re-experience the 2010-2011 fuel shortage that resulted into people spending days and nights on gas stations before taking to the streets demonstrating against the then late President Bingu wa Mutharika’s regime.
Mera in a press statement issued on Wednesday insisted the country has enough fuel supply and that there is adequate financing mechanism for the country’s fuel needs.
Mera Chief Executive Officer, Raphael Kamoto said in a statement: “The public should ignore all malicious and unfounded speculative reports that Malawi does not have enough fuel supplies.”
Kamoto assured the nation that the country’s reserves have adequate internal stockholding of all petroleum products and that will continue to enjoy uninterrupted fuel supplies.
Mera has since, according to the statement, maintained fuel pump prices for petrol, diesel and paraffin, saying this was necessitated by combined effect of recent trends in world petroleum prices and local currency exchange rate gains.
Petrol remains at K839per litre, Diesel K853and Paraffin K719.
Malawi adopted the Automatic Fuel Pricing mechanism in 2012 to encourage fuel importing companies import petroleum products to meet the demand based on market shares and the mandatory stock holding requirements.
Under the mechanism, fuel pump prices are adjusted to reflect fuel price movements on the international market.
Prior to the introduction of the automatic fuel pricing mechanism by former President Joyce Banda, the country was hard hit by persistent fuel shortages, which negatively affected levels of production and the economy at large.
