Burundi: a new fuel shortage looming
This is yet another shortage, according to different end users. On some service stations were observed this Monday, queues as far as the eye could see, without hope of being served. On the other hand, on the black market, especially in the Buyenzi neighborhood, in the commercial city of Bujumbura, black gold is there, but a liter can be bought at more than 5,000 Burundian francs. INFO SOS Médias Burundi
Bujumbura
South of the economic capital Bujumbura, in Kanyosha, gas stations are closed.
Near the Brarudi (Brewery and lemonade of Burundi), a chain of vehicles are waiting but motorists are pessimistic.
“We are waiting but without hope because we don’t even know if the station will be supplied or not”, complains a paid transport driver.
At the station located near the market called chez Sion, north of the city, not a drop of gasoline or fuel oil was available.
Same scenario at the gas stations along Boulevard Adolphe Nshimirimana.
“We are having trouble working,” motorists who were there complain.
According to our information, only four service stations had been supplied with gasoline this Sunday evening in the entire economic capital.
However, some car drivers have told us that the fuel only lasted for dew time.
They said almost all the fuel had been drained from stations to be sold on the black market.
This Monday morning, at the black market located in the Buyenzi neighborhood, a liter of gasoline was bought for more than 5,000 Burundian francs and a 20-liter can for 100,000 francs, according to paid transport drivers who say they did not have no choice but to buy on the black market.
“We have no choice. We get our supplies there, although it is expensive. We have to work to feed our families,” they say. The price of a liter of gasoline is 3250 Burundian francs.
The inhabitants of the economic capital ask the government to find a definitive solution to the problem of fuel shortage.
Bubanza
In the province of Bubanza (west), motorcycle taxi drivers say that “we are having difficulty feeding our families. Forced to contract debt, we risk being considered as crooks”, they say. The price of a local trip has doubled.
Cibitoke
This Tuesday, several passengers were unable to travel.
“I have just spent more than three hours in this car park. My day is wasted,” lamented a man in the provincial capital. He wanted to go to the commercial city Bujumbura.
A bus driver felt that “this situation will cause problems because most of the men are going home empty-handed”.
According to a certain opinion, the lack of fuel is one of the causes of the soaring prices of food products which can be observed on the food market and in the shops.
Recently, the head of state announced that “the dollars and the fuel that you ask me, I have no tap from which they flow”.
The situation is likely to worsen, the small East African nation no longer having strategic fuel stocks. The minister in charge of energy, who is also in charge of fuel management, told the senators that “all fuel reserve stocks are empty, whether in Bujumbura or Gitega”.
