| Fuel Shortage |
| Tuesday, 08 December 2009 09:32 |
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Over the last 4 weeks there has been a growing fuel shortage. It started with a shortage of diesel fuel and has now spread to unleaded as well. This shortage has created long lines at gas stations in anticipation of fuel shipments arriving. I was reading the paper yesterday and it appears that the fuel shortage is starting to seriously effect companies from doing business, which could have a devastating effecting on the already fragile economy here. They are saying this is the worst fuel shortage in the country’s history. This time of year is the beginning of rainy season and planting season. Since Malawi has an agrarian based economy, it is critical that seed and fertilizer get delivered across the country so that people can begin to plant their crops. The effects of not getting the crops planted in time could be devastating to the economy and could create a huge food shortage in 2010. The government blame game has been in full swing the last few weeks, with no one wanting to take ownership of the problem. The long and the short of it is that there is just not enough foreign currency (a.k.a. US Dollars) for the government to purchase the necessary fuel. The government purchases the fuel and then resells it to all the fuel companies in the country and then tells them how much they can sell it for. In essence, the government acts as the market distributor for the country and controls the entire market of fuel. So since the government does not have the foreign currency (for many different reasons) they need to purchase the fuel, then there is no fuel coming in and getting to the stations. There are rumors that the government has taken out a $50 million dollar loan from a bank to help get the currency they need to start purchasing fuel and get it distributed across the country, so there is hope that the shortage may come to the end soon. But that is yet to be seen. In the meantime, we have been trying to walk and use public transportation as much as possible. We stumbled across a BP Saturday evening that actually had fuel and were able to almost fill up without waiting in any lines. We will probably run out of gas later this week again, so we are hoping the problem may be resolved by then…but we’ll see. Please pray that this situation gets straightened out quickly so that we do not have a humanitarian crisis come spring when the crops are supposed to be harvested. |
