Petrol’s black market resurrects in Malawi

The parallel petrol market has resurrected in Malawi’s commercial city, Blantyre, following recent fuel shortages in the country.

Blantyre has been experiencing erratic supplies of petrol since last week, causing some vendors to take advantage of the situation to sell the product at twice the official price.

Some vendors who bought petrol in jerry cans at Puma Blantyre Main Service Station on Friday made a killing by reselling the product to desperate motorists who had queued from Wenela to HHI traffic lights at K1 200 per litre instead of the official price of K606.30.

One motorist, Jimmy Ngwira, said he left the service station around midnight, but failed to buy the fuel because of what he described as “primitive behaviour of vendors.”

A Kameza-based vendor, who only identified himself as John, was on Saturday and Friday selling petrol at K1 500 per litre.

Asked why he was selling the product at twice the official price, John said: “I am in business and I have to factor in the cost of the fuel, transport and other incidentals to make a profit.”

He claimed he brought into the country 1 000 litres from Mozambique on Friday, but by Saturday 8am, he had already sold out the product.

Chirimba and Ndirande fuel black markets were dry the whole of Sunday.

But some vendors in the townships said they would have petrol in the evening as their colleagues had gone to buy it.

Reports show that Tsangano, the biggest fuel black market in the country, is also regaining momentum with the recent fuel shortages in the country.

Tsangano borders Malawi and Mozambique in Ntcheu.

Finance Minister Dr Ken Lipenga last Friday said Malawi will continue to face erratic fuel supply because the country’s international suppliers do not still have confidence in the economy.

“The difficulties that we see manifest themselves regarding fuel are to an extent a reflection of the difficulties we had in the past with regard to forex.

“But it [also] has to do with issues of confidence from our international creditors at the moment, the way we are sourcing fuel is not really the way we used to,” he said.

Experts fear if Malawi continues on this path, its Economic Recovery Plan (ERP) may be derailed.