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Patrick Chitumba Midlands Bureau Chief

SERVICE stations in Zvishavane and several others across the country are reportedly channelling fuel to the black market where they are being paid in foreign currency, resulting in an artificial shortages on the market, an official has said.

National Oil Infrastructure Company of Zimbabwe (NOIC) board chairman Engineer Daniel Mackenzie-Ncube said there was a lot of indiscipline at service stations.

“We have noted with concern a lot of indiscipline in service stations across the country,” he said. “This corruption in service stations is causing artificial shortages of fuel. We have identified some service stations in Zvishavane and these are under surveillance and Government will not hesitate to cancel their licenses.”

Eng Ncube said it was unfortunate that a few motorists were managing to buy the commodity from the service stations, with the rest being channelled to the black market.

“There is corruption at the dealership level which we have noticed,” he said. “We have seen that fuel attendants are given for example 300 litres each and at night they come and empty all the tanks and sell the fuel on the black market in United States dollars.

“Sometimes the transactions are done in the middle of the night or at the homes of the fuel attendants and the motorists are forced to buy the commodity from the black market and at exorbitant prices.”

Last week, Eng Ncube said NOIC was working with the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) to secure lines of credit to enable it to import more fuel to meet demand.

Energy and Power Development Minister Advocate Fortune Chasi last week said Government was looking for ways to address the channelling of fuel to the black market which resulted in unending queues at service stations.

In the Midlands province, motorists complain that a few of them are sold petrol or diesel before they are told by fuel attendants that it is finished.