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Police confiscate ‘zigubu’

Police in Lilongwe yesterday confiscated over 500 20-litre jerry cans, locally known as ‘zigubu’, in an operation to purportedly cut fuel supply to the parallel market suspected to be worsening current shortages.

Lilongwe Police Station spokesperson Hastings Chigalu said in an interview the operation started on Monday.

He said: “What we are doing is that once we hear that a tanker will offload fuel at some filling station, we are storming the area to  confiscate the jerry cans.

“So far, we have confiscated 500 jerry cans and two drums with a 200-litre capacity each. There are uncountable five-litre gallons as well.”

Chigalu said police launched the campaign after being tipped off that those who buy fuel in jerry cans were reselling the commodity on the black market thereby creating shortage on the main market.

A motorist Yeremiah Phiri, who was waiting for his turn at a filling station in Area 13, hailed the police and asked the law enforcers to extend the operation to other filling stations in the country.

The country has this month faced the worst fuel supply in nearly 10 years which President Lazarus Chakwera has attributed to forex shortage.

This has led to some filling stations running out of  fuel supply, especially in the major cities on Blantyre, Lilongwe and Mzuzu, forcing motorists to queue for hours to buy the commodity when its available.

On the parallel market, vendors are selling at K3 500 per litre for both petrol and diesel when the normal price is K1 746 for petrol and K1 920 for diesel.

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