Customer’s line up for the scarce resource at a filling station in Juba. [Gurtong | Waakhe Simon Wudu]
By Waakhe Simon Wudu
JUBA, 21 October 2012 [Gurtong] – Despite the intervention by the Central bank to address the crisis by availing more hard currency to importers, major towns have experienced a fuel shortage with customers lining up at the few stations with fuel.
Lack of hard currency was raised as the major cause for the crisis but the situation still persists.
Numerous petrol stations in Juba have been rendered redundant and not operating due to lack of supplies.
Many fuel consumers have been told there is no fuel though a few of the stations have either petrol or diesel.
It is however not clear if it is a trick by the operating companies to hike the prices of the fuel in the country.
In previous months security in Juba impounded numerous tanks of fuel been hidden with the intention of selling the fuel on the black market.
Paul Adong, the Managing Director of NilePet the government owned Oil Company that regulates affairs of the fuel operating companies in the country said that the crisis will continue so long as South Sudan depends from other countries for fuel consumption.
“The fuel crisis in the country is complex simply because we depend on some other countries for fuel consumption. We depend on Kenya. So any time there is problem in Kenya we also suffer,” he said.
He said that our infrastructure that handles the storage is still small.
“Until we have enough storage capacity so that we store excess such that when there is a problem from the supplying side in Kenya we use our stored fuel, we will have this problem,” says Adong.
He pointed out that government is in the process of reconstructing an additional fuel storage depots aimed at addressing the problem.