Staff ReporterZimbabwe owes foreign fuel suppliers, including Glencore, Total and Trafigura $200-million, which has made new imports difficult as companies require cash upfront, the energy minister and central bank governor said on Thursday.
Zimbabwe has experienced fuel shortages since September, forcing motorists to queue for hours to fill up.
The Southern African nation has also been hit by rolling power cuts for two weeks due to low generating capacity, angering residents that are grappling with economic hardship.
“Fuel queues are an eyesore, we don’t want to see them. The fuel situation is a symptom of a bigger problem in the economy,” Reserve Bank Governor John Mangudya told a parliamentary committee.
Mangudya said the central bank had in the past two weeks issued $115 million in letters of credit to oil companies to import 170 million litres of fuel, enough to last just over a month.
