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Michael Magoronga Midlands Correspondent

A newly-introduced accounting system for all fuel received by service stations has resulted in shorter queues around the country, an official has said.

National Oil Infrastructure Company (NOIC) board chair Engineer Daniel Mackenzie Ncube said Government was working round the clock to ensure the fuel situation returns to normal.

In an interview, Eng Mackenzie Ncube said responsible authorities might have struck the right cord and would continue working on improving efficiency.

“The fuel situation has improved immensely and this is attributed to a combination of factors that are being implemented by Government through its various arms,” he said. “As NOIC, we are working round the clock to ensure that fuel supplies improve across the country.”

Eng Mackenzie Ncube said NOIC worked with the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) in introducing a raft of measures that have resulted in sanity prevailing in the fuel sector.

Among other measures, ZERA introduced a concept whereby all fuel stations account for fuel received, in a bid to curb the fuel black market.

“A lot of sanity that is prevailing is attributed to ZERA through an introduction of some measures that helped in stabilising the situation,” said Eng Mackenzie Ncube. “We are going to continue working together to ensure that there is enough supply of fuel in the country.”

He also attributed the improvement of fuel supplies to economic reforms taken by the central bank and Treasury.

“We are fighting the situation as Government,” he said. “You will also find that the massive improvement is attributed to price gap between the interbank rate and the retail price of fuel. This goes to stop a lot of arbitrage as people stop selling fuel on the parallel market.”