Bujumbura: the fuel crisis far from being resolved

For weeks, it has been difficult, if not impossible, to find fuel gasoline in the commercial city of Bujumbura. Customers claim to spend nights and days at petrol stations waiting to be served, without success. Managers of gasoline distribution points explain that they are not supplied. INFO SOS Médias Burundi

As noted by our reporters at several petrol stations, hundreds of vehicles have been visible in recent days.

“On the Chaussée Peuple Murundi (center of the city), we saw long queues of vehicles on the station located very close to the parish of the Pentecostal church in Ntahangwa.
In the Ngagara zone (north), it was the same situation. Between Sections 3 and 5, there were several vehicles over a distance of two kilometers waiting to refuel, to no avail”, our reporters report.

All stations located on Mwezi Gisabo Boulevard (center) are also invaded by desperate customers.

In the south of the commercial city, customers are also having difficulty finding gasoline. It is above all drivers of vehicles providing remunerated transport who suffer from this.

“We wait several days for fuel and when we find it, it is not in sufficient quantity”, lament public transport bus and taxi drivers.

A mother living in the neighborhood of Kibenga in the south of Bujumbura testifies that “I parked my car at a petrol station since last Saturday and I had gasoline on Tuesday”.

She considers herself lucky because most of townspeople couldn’t find any after her.

“I arrived at a petrol station at 5:30 a.m. and waited until 9:30 p.m., and then I got bad news that the tanks were exhausted”, laments a resident of northern Bujumbura who spent Tuesday December 20 looking for gasoline without finding any.

Station managers and pump attendants explain the situation by the lack of the product.

The ministry in charge of energy, at the same time in charge of the management of petroleum products, speaks of logistical problems but promises to put an end to the shortage.

“The Ministry of Energy communicates to the public that following the resolution of logistical problems which led to the shortage of gasoline, this product will be available shortly in the same way as diesel today”, it wrote on its Twitter account on December 20, enough to draw criticism from several townspeople disgusted by the situation.