National Oil Company of Malawi (Nocma) has dismissed assertions by local transporters that it prefers Tanzanian hauliers in fuel haulage contracts, saying it values Malawian hauliers highly as important stakeholders.
Nocma spokesperson Raymond Likambale in a written response on Saturday quoted a Malawi Energy Regulatory Authority (Mera) April 2026 report showing that 64.95 percent of fuel haulage was transported by Malawian transporters.
He said that as of last Friday, 55 Malawi-registered tankers left Tanga Port in Tanzania for Malawi and that 124 other tankers had already operated along the Northern Corridor.
Likambale said that on the Mozambican route, Nocma exclusively engages Malawian transporters for fuel transportation services from Mozambique.
He said, for instance, in May alone, 220 tankers have transported fuel from the Mozambican ports of Nacala and Beira, arguing that the figures continue to change as fuel haulage is a continuous activity.
“Malawian transporters should also appreciate that we work closely with recognised transporter associations. Whenever products are available at our loading ports, we engage these associations, which in turn nominate trucks for the assignment,” said Likambale.
But Transporters Association of Malawi (TAM) has said only Petroleum Importers Limited (PIL), a consortium of private oil marketing companies, is is fully engaging Malawian transporters.
TAM spokesperson Frank Banda said Tanzanian transporters are ferrying 95 percent of the fuel to Nocma depots.
“Just go to Nocma depots and see. You will know who is lying and who is telling the truth. The majority of the trucks hired by Nocma are from Tanzania. We are not even talking about the Mozambique route but the Dar es Salaam route,” he said.
Last week, Banda said the current arrangement has resulted in Malawian transporters taking weeks to load fuel in Dar es Salaam while their Tanzania counterparts make numerous round trips and get paid in dollars.
Between 2020 and 2024 local operators protested the delivered duty unpaid system which was being used mostly by Tanzanian transporters to haul fuel into Malawi, arguing that it put local transporters at a disadvantage.
Consequently, in August 2024, the High Court of Malawi outlawed DDU in a case where the Fuel Tankers Operators Association challenged the system.
