Mines and energy minister Tom Alweendo last week confirmed that the moratorium on fuel wholesale retail licences will remain in effect to protect those already in business.
“Over the time, we have been issuing a number of retail licences to the extent that the existing retail businesses started complaining that the ministry has been issuing too many of this affecting their businesses, in such a way that the volume of demand in the country almost remained the same but then we have increased the outlets,” said the minister while responding to questions in the National Assembly.
He further added the moratorium is not applicable throughout the country as the ministry makes exceptions for far reaching rural areas. However, new retail fuel licences are not being issued in towns.
Towards the middle of last year, when Alweendo announced the moratorium, he said since 2018, the ministry issued 87 new retail licences, bringing the total of active licences to more than 500 countrywide.
During the same time, Alweendo said the annual total fuel consumption for petrol was 429 million litres and diesel was 727 million litres. During the previous year, the total fuel consumption for petrol was 338 million litres, while diesel was 755 million litres.
From these numbers, the average volume per month per retail outlet is 56 000 litres of petrol and 121 000 litres of diesel, Alweendo said.
“These figures tell us that we have been issuing too many new licences to trade in fuel, while the consumption has not increased,” he said. The minister added that this means the same amount of fuel is now being shared among many more retail outlets.