Siphakeme .Mnindwa
Raymond Jaravaza, raymondjaravaza@gmail.com
BLACK market fuel dealers have resurfaced on Bulawayo’s streets, selling smuggled petrol and diesel. The illicit traders claim that their contraband fuel, sourced mainly from South Africa and Botswana, offers superior mileage and performance compared to the legally sold blended fuel.
In August, the Government announced that all fuel sold in Zimbabwe must be blended with ethanol before sale. The Government stated that unblended fuel being sold in some service stations as “unleaded fuel” must be blended with the same laid-down percentage of ethanol.
Minister of Energy and Power Development, Edgar Moyo, said the regulations were made after consultation with the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (Zera).
Investigations by Chronicle revealed that street fuel dealers are back in business in various western suburbs across the city, where they have started selling what they claim to be unleaded fuel. Business is brisk given the unproven notion that the so-called unleaded fuel lasts longer compared to blended fuel and doesn’t damage vehicle engines.
Along the busy Luveve Road, next to a car park close to the Rio Turn bus stop, fuel dealers conduct their business in a black commuter omnibus laden with several 20-litre containers full of the now outlawed product. In the 30 minutes that the news crew waited to observe the illegal sale of unleaded fuel, five commuter omnibuses plying the city centre/Luveve and Gwabalanda route stopped to refuel at the improvised fuel station.
In Emakhandeni suburb, the smuggled fuel is sold at a busy intersection where Luveve Road meets Masiyephambili Drive, while in Mpopoma, they operate at an illegal taxi rank opposite Mpopoma High School. Clients seeking the smuggled fuel get it from dealers operating in Nketa 6 along the busy road that heads into Emganwini suburb.
The illegal business is conducted in broad daylight, and customers usually buy the fuel in five-litre containers at US$7,50 for diesel and US$6,50 for petrol. As of yesterday, fuel service stations were selling a litre of diesel for US$1,55, while petrol was pegged at US$1,53. Commuter omnibus drivers are all too happy to pay for the illegal unleaded fuel.
“The fuel lasts longer, so that is why we buy from the street dealers. The guys (street fuel dealers) are back in business ever since the ban on unleaded fuel was announced,” said a kombi driver who declined to be named.
There is no leaded petrol in Zimbabwe, as this was phased out in 2006, and none has been imported into or sold in the country for 18 years now. However, blending with ethanol has been compulsory since 2011 as part of national measures to encourage the use of biofuels. There was always a group of motorists who, for personal reasons, mistakenly believed that blended fuel could damage their cars. A number of retailers then decided to work their way around the ban on unblended petrol by finding a loophole and calling it “unleaded petrol,” even though all petrol was unleaded. That loophole has now been closed.
Ethanol blending started off as voluntary but became compulsory. The switch to blended petrol came for several reasons — reduction of petroleum imports, reducing carbon footprint, creating extra markets for sugarcane farmers, and creating new jobs for those in the value chain. Biofuels do not add to the carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere when they burn, since the replacement sugarcane takes the equivalent carbon out as it grows.
Minister Moyo clarified in Parliament last month why the Government banned the sale of ‘unleaded fuel’.
“We were now having people conniving and purporting to be selling unleaded fuel while they were busy blending on their own. As a result, this was jeopardising the engines of those bona fide motorists who were thinking that they were buying unleaded fuel.
“I am sure with the advent of this policy, it therefore gives confidence to the motorists that the moment you start buying unleaded, you would know that this is now a product of blended fuel and what we now have as the ethanol, given the quantities that are coming through the ethanol versus the blend,” Minister Moyo told parliamentarians.
The minister also allayed fears that blended fuel damages vehicle engines.
