Minister of Energy Jean Mathanga’s deadline of Tuesday for fuel supply stability has passed with motorists in the Central and Southern regions continuing to struggle to access the commodity at service stations.
The Nation checks in Lilongwe City, where availability appeared to have improved on Tuesday, found several service stations without either petrol or diesel while in Blantyre and other Southern Region districts petrol remained scarce although some stations had diesel.
In Lilongwe, service stations in Kawale, Biwi and around Kamuzu Central Hospital had neither diesel nor petrol. The same was the case at Kaunda Road Service Station, Capital Hill TotalEnergies and all service stations in the City Centre.
Informal reports of a potential delivery of petrol at Kambuku Service Station in City Centre attracted a long queue of vehicles while Gateway TotalEnergies had diesel and there was no queue, with motorists simply driving in to refuel.
traffic flow on Masauko Chipembere Highway
in Blantyre. | Francis Chamasowa
A similar situation was observed in Blantyre City yesterday in the afternoon. Out of eight fuel service stations The Nation surveyed, only one had diesel while petrol was not available.
Motorcycle taxi operator Patrick Mambo, who plies his trade within Blantyre CBD, said that at around 1pm he refuelled his motorbike with 12 litres, which fills tank.
“Since then, I have been carryin customers around the city, but I haven’t seen any filling station with petrol. Some of my friends are still in the queue,” he said.
In Thyolo, only one filling station had diesel while in Salima there was no petrol but diesel in few service stations. In Mangochi and at Liwonde, both diesel and petrol were not available
The Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) fuel delivery schedule for yesterday showed that 115 service stations were expected to receive fuel, comprising 10 in the North, 62 in the Centre and 43 in the South. Of these, 45 were scheduled to receive diesel, 62 to receive petrol and eight to receive both fuels.
The number of service stations expected to receive fuel increased from 88 on Wednesday and 84 on Tuesday but remained below Monday’s 126.
The minister yesterday did not respond to The Nation calls on four attempts.
Motorists have since organised themselves into WhatsApp groups where they share updates on fuel availability.
In Lilongwe, for example, a member of Fuel Availability Group complained that the situation was hopeless.
Although Petroda Malawi Limited has been consistent with fuel deliveries to its filling stations, one of the group’s updates indicated that additional fuel was being delivered on Thursday.
A reaction to the post read: “You have only indicated that additional petrol will be delivered to four out of 30 stations. This is not on.”
National Oil Company of Malawi spokesperson Raymond Likambale on Wednesday promised to give us the latest update on the situation but he did not pick up a WhatsApp call yesterday and was yet to respond to a message sent on the platform.
Last week, Mathanga indicated that fuel supplies were expected to normalise this week, especially in the Southern Region. The scarcity is clocking almost two months now.
Fuel Service Retailers Association chairperson Happy Jere said earlier this week that deliveries had improved between Saturday and Monday, but the gains
