The Prime Minister of Uganda Robinah Nabbanja has urged motorists to boycott fuel stations that are steadily hiking prices.
The skyrocketing fuel prices is alluded to the government’s policy to curb the spread of Covid-19. Under the policy, the government subjected all fuel truck drivers to a mandatory Covid-19 test despite having Polymerase Chain Reaction (PCR) certificates from their respective countries of origin. The truck drivers protested Uganda’s move unless tests were done at the cost of the government.
Since there was no inflow of fuel, the prices shot up and by the end of last week, a litre of fuel was costing Shs 12,000 in some parts of the country like Hoima.
According to Ms. Nabbanja, the Cabinet meeting which was held earlier this week suspended mandatory testing for Covid-19 of truck drivers and passengers at the Malaba and Busia land borders. The prime minister said the decision aimed at easing flow of fuel tankers across the borders.
“I want to advise Ugandans to go to fuel stations that have not hiked the prices. Two companies have not hiked their prices and therefore go and buy from those ones these others will follow, because it is not necessary for any company to hike prices above Shs 5000,” she said.
The ongoing fuel crisis is also blamed on the government’s failure to fill fuel reserves in Jinja. Yesterday, Mr. Joel Nkangi, the depot manager of Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC0, revealed that Uganda’s oil reserves ran out of fuel.
The reserves have a storage capacity of 30 million liters, against a monthly demand of between 200 and 230 million liters of fuel in the Country and that all the fuel in the reserves could only contain the situation for a period of one week in case of a crisis.
