FULL THREAD: Mawarire Discusses Why Zimbabwe Has A Fuel Crisis Even During Lockdown

Jealousy Mawarire, a former spokesperson for National People’s Party political party, has claimed that the country is facing a serious fuel shortage crisis even during the lockdown when activities demanding fuel are less because the fuel cartel in the country popularly known as Queen Bee is currently focusing on making money in the health sector.

Posting on Twitter this Monday, Mawarire said:

Despite the partial lockdown, restricted movt & depressed prices of fuel on the international market, Zim is facing acute shortage of fuel. It’s because Queen Bee, the one with fuel supply monopoly, found a more lucrative monopoly–supply of ethanol 4 manufacture of hand sanitisers.

Queen Bee now has monopoly for supplying all the Ethanol in the country, an important source of alcohol needed for the manufacture of hand sanitisers. He has an arrangement with Green Fuels & Tongaat Hulett to purchase all the ethanol they are producing creating a monopoly.

Rather than use the Ethanol for blending with petrol which is mandatory before any gas station sells motor vehicle fuel to motorists in the country, Queen Bee is now concentrating on the more lucrative hand sanitisers business because of Covid-19.

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Queen Bee is now exporting most of the Ethanol to Zambia, Malawi & DRC. After sealing the ethanol monopoly with Tongaat Hullet & Green Fuels, Queen Bee increased the price of ethanol from Z$28/l to Z$74/l, making local price of hand sanitisers more expensive.

Companies making sanitisers have no choice but to buy his overpriced Ethanol because of the monopoly. The high demand 4 alcohol 4 the manufacture of hand sanitizers means high prices 4 ethanol hence no ethanol is being supplied for blending because of fixed fuel prices hence fuel queues

The result is now serious shortage of petrol in the market despite low prices on the international market. It is time Zimbabweans demand the liberalisation of the fuel sector, do away with the Queen Bee monopoly & also abolish mandatory blending.

Right now LP gas is abundant on the market because the market is liberalised & because of low demand of the LP gas, especially in SA where most suppliers import from, because of closure of restaurants because of Covid-19, LP gas prices have gone down to even $0.50c per KG from around $1.45/KG.

The same should be done with fuel. The sector should be liberalised, mandatory blending abolished & players in the industry should sell their product in currency of choice. With fuel prices depressed like now & with competition, motorists should buy a litre of petrol for $0.50c or less.

But the problem with the Junta govt is that it is pro-cartels, NEVER pro-people. The suffering of our people is inconsequential to ED & his cartels as long as they are making money. Now they are making money through Covid-19 & everyone else can go to hell.

@edmnangagwa & Queen Bee don’t care about supplying fuel to the market now because they are making more money through Ethanol monopoly. However, they don’t want to let go of their monopoly on the fuel sector, because post-COVID-19, they still want to be the only players in the sector.

Surely, with the high demand for ethanol due to Covid-19 induced demand for hand sanitisers, why do we still have mandatory blending of fuel? Why isn’t the fuel sector liberalised since ED’s Junta & it’s monopoly has failed to supply adequate fuel since the Nov 2017 coup?

Zimbabweans should rise, say no to fuel cartels, say no to Ethanol cartels, say no to @edmnangagwa & his military junta. It is time we refuse policies that don’t work for the general citizenry but serve interests of greedy juntaprenuers.

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