By Rungano Dzikira

Government, together with the Environmental Management Agency (EMA) has put a waiver on the restriction to night transportation and fuel deliveries, in an effort to ease shortages ahead of the festive season.

Speaking during a question and answer session in the upper house this Thursday, Minister of Energy and Power Development, Dr Joram Gumbo said that Government was continuously mapping initiatives to ease off fuel queues which have grappled the motoring public over the past month.

“We are continuously trying to come up with initiatives to ensure that fuel (petrol and diesel) is readily available though our efforts are constantly being derailed by saboteurs profiteering from selling the product on the parallel market.”

“Government has since negotiated for a waiver on the restriction of night deliveries to accord NOIC to continue (off) loading fuel 24 hours a day.

“These efforts seem to have been derailed by people who instead of delivering to service stations are channelling towards the black market, especially during the night deliveries. Likewise, the RBZ has also increased its fuel allocation to fuel importing companies,” Dr Gumbo said.  

He added that Government was going to continue monitoring the fuel situation and ensure that it does not run dry during the festive season and beyond.

Despite Government efforts, economic saboteurs continue wreaking havoc in the fuel sector as 15 fuel trucks intended for Zimbabwe deliveries were recently impounded in Zambia, having passed through Chirundu border post.