From the look of things, Malawians will have to endure a long wait for the fuel situation to normalise as 210 tankers are unable to load fuel at the ports pending clearance of funds.
Transporters Association of Malawi (TAM) spokesperson Frank Banda said in an interview yesterday that fuel suppliers in port cities of Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and Beira in Mozambique are waiting for Letters of Credit (LCs) from Malawian authorities to authorise loading of fuel.
He said 150 of their tankers in Dar es Salaam and another 60 or so in Beira are clocking the second month without being allowed to load fuel.
Said Banda: “We stationed 150 tankers in Dar es Salaam waiting to load when LCs mature. We have heard that there are LCs available for 14 million litres so we are waiting how that will pan out.
“But currently, we are loading between five and 10 tankers per day. All these belong to Nocma [National Oil Company of Malawi] because Petroleum Importers Limited [PIL] is struggling to import fuel due to foreign exchange [forex] shortages. If PIL had forex, by now things would have been better.”
He said the situation has put transporters in an awkward situation as they are struggling to pay employees while those whose vehicles were financed through bank loans are now defaulting. He added that it was also difficult to refuel the tankers for use from Malawi to the ports.
“We don’t have to waste time to look for new suppliers or creditors because even the new suppliers will need money, forex. Let’s spend more time looking for forex than looking for new players,” said Banda.
A petroleum industry source confirmed the challenging situation, saying the private sector importers were also hard hit because Capital Hill has been busy engaging suppliers to go for an open credit.
The source said Malawi’s failure to pay the suppliers prompted them to close their taps even after the Arab Bank for Economic Development in Africa (Badea) provided the $50 million credit facility to offset the outstanding debt.
Said the source: “After Badea paid, they [fuel suppliers] opened their taps a little bit. But it is not enough because what was paid was about $50 million when the credit was over $70 million. So, the suppliers said if you want us to continue, you have to settle the balance.”
In an interview last evening, Nocma spokesperson Raymond Likambale said a recent financing made available to suppliers created headroom for supply of 40.8 million litres.
He said: “We believe we are trying our best to push for the achievement of normalcy. We are loading from the ports of Dar es Salaam, Beira and Nacala as well. So far we have 3.54 million litres in transit and 13.4 million litres being loaded at the three ports.
“We nominate trucks based on volumes available. We, therefore, can only talk of trucks and wagons nominated by Nocma.”
Earlier, Consumers Association of Malawi executive director John Kapito said the arrangements that were able to give Malawi such foreign exchange facilities previously stopped because the country failed to honour payments.
On Tuesday, Minister of Energy Ibrahim Matola issued a statement explaining the fuel status and measures being taken to stabilise the situation, but stakeholders said the explanation offered no hope.
The minister, who has been in hibernation since the onset of the latest episode of fuel scarcity now clocking six weeks and counting, said he has been holding emergency meetings with key stakeholders in the fuel supply chain.
Malawi has been experiencing fuel stockouts in the past four years, largely due to foreign exchange scarcity.
A National Stocks Fuel Report for October compiled by Mera showed that the crisis had been brewing since October 1 2024, when the country had 4.9 days stock of petrol and 15 days stock of diesel.
The country has an annual import bill of $3 billion against $1 billion forex it generates.
