By Innocent Mujeri

The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) has suspended the re-issuance of fuel retailing licenses for fuel service stations and has since notified fuel retailers that the current licences will lose their validity on 31 January this year, The Harare Post can report.

A contact at ZERA who spoke to this publication on condition of anonymity, said that fuel service station operators were notified at the beginning of this year that there will be a delay on the reissuance of fuel retailing licences.

The move was set to afford ZERA ample time to compute and come up with appropriate fuel retail licencing fees which does not prejudice stakeholders involved in the fuel industry.

Speaking to this publication the contact elaborated that the fuel licence fees of ZWL $500.00 currently being charged by ZERA was a direct conversion from USD 500.00 that was being charged before the abolishment of multi-currency system by the Central Bank and was no longer sustainable in the current operating environment.

ZERA is expected to reissue the fuel licences soon which will be charged at USD 500.00 or its equivalent in local currency at the prevailing interbank rates.

The regulatory authority is also projected to hike the fuel procurement and wholesale licences to ZWL $ 2 million or its equivalent in local currency.

Expects who spoke to this publication argued that the move by ZERA, if correctly implemented, will bring sanity to the fuel industry which has been hit by a wave of acute fuel shortage and volatile pricing system of the commodity.

Efforts to get a comment from ZERA Chief Executive Officer, Eddington Mazambani were fruitless as his mobile was unreachable.