Motorists queue for fuel at a Caltex filling station in Nsambya, one of the few that still had some petrol yesterday

By Vision reporters

THE fuel shortage, especially of petrol, has disrupted the transport sector. This has pushed transport fares up. The shortages were caused by the post-election violence in Kenya, which followed the weekend announcement of Mwai Kibaki as the winner. The riots have blocked the Kenya-Uganda cross-border trade.

A survey of Kampala’s major filling stations showed that the few stations with petrol had more than doubled its price from sh2,400 to sh6,000.
Shell, Caltex, Total, Moil, Gapco, Libra and Hared fuel stations had run out of petrol, with only diesel available. But its price, too, had gone up from sh2,000 to sh2,220 a litre.

The fuel stations with petrol had long queues of motorists. These included Concorp at Kyambogo that was selling at sh3,800, Gapco Clock Tower and Kobil Ndeeba that were selling at sh6,000 a litre.

The energy ministry permanent secretary, Fred Kaliisa, assured the nation yesterday that the fuel shortage would normalise “as soon as possible.”
“As I talk now, the Kenya energy officials are meeting to lay strategies of escorting fuel tankers to the border. This will ensure constant fuel flow into the country,” he said.

“We are looking at using Dar-es-Salaam as an alternative but the problem is the delays associated with the route.”

Kaliisa explained that the fuel shortage in East africa started a month ago. Reports from Iganga said most filling stations had also run out of fuel as motorists rushed to fill up their cars as early as 6:00am. Hared filling station on the Main Street in Iganga town was the first to run out of petrol, followed by Shell. Total, Gapco and Delta had low reserves of petrol and diesel.

Ali Hared, a supervisor at Hared, said they were selling petrol at sh3,500 and diesel at sh3,000. The Jinja branch sold petrol at sh5,000 and diesel at sh4,500.
Meanwhile, in Busia on the border with Kenya, Uganda closed its border to prevent the violence from spilling over into Uganda.

Busia resident district commissioner, Robinah Nabanja, on Monday said they were still studying the situation before they could reopen the border.
Nabanja said they had deployed the Police at the major inlets and outlets along the border.

By Sunday morning, the three petrol stations in Busia town had run out of petrol. Scovia Nafuna, an employee of Hared petrol station, said they had reserved only 1,000 litres of petrol and 3,000 litres of diesel for the Busia district local government.

Gulu and other towns of northern Uganda are also facing a shortage of petrol and paraffin. Kenneth Kitara of Caltex Gulu said, “For one week now, we have had no petrol and kerosene.”
Godfrey Okello, a boda-boda rider, said the black market dealers, commonly known as Opec Boys, had also run short of fuel.

In Mbarara, prices went up from sh2,400 to sh6,000 a litre, while transport charges doubled. Mbarara to Kampala rose from sh10,000 to sh20,000, Kabale to Kampala is now sh30,000, up from sh15,000. Kasese to Kampala shot to sh30,000 from sh20,000. Iganga to Jinja fares rose from sh2,000 to sh4,000, while Jinja-Mbale costs sh8,000.

By Abdulkarim Ssengendo, Egessa Hajusu, Daniel Edyegu, Chris Ocowun, Ebenezer Bifubyeka, Ibrahim Kasiita, Raymond Baguma and Steven Candia