By Raymond Baguma, Ebenezer Bifubyeka and Patrick Jaramogi

THE scarcity of fuel has persisted countrywide despite several petroleum companies reporting that they had received supplies over the weekend.
A number of filling stations The New Vision visited around Kampala and the suburbs had run out of diesel, paraffin and petrol yesterday. These included Shell, Total, Gapco, Kobil, PetroCity and Caltex stations.

Stocks were only available at Moil filling station in Banda, Gaz filling station in Bugolobi, Hared filling station in Kireka and City Oil filling station along Bombo Road.

John Matovu, Chevron-Uganda country chairman, said tankers had delivered fuel from Kenya on Thursday and Friday. He attributed the shortage to panic buying.
“Consumers who never used to fill their tanks are filling them now. The shortage is due to the less than satisfactory supply”, he said.

Halima Besisira, the communications manager for Shell Uganda, also said they had imported petrol and diesel but they were unable to meet the demand.
“The scarcity is due to the high demand. We expect more fuel trucks, which are presently at the border, to arrive. But we do not have a limitless number of trucks,” Besisira said.

At Port Bell in Luzira, hopes were raised following the departure of 22 train wagons by ship to the Tanzanian town of Mwanza yesterday. The wagons have a loading capacity of 45,000 litres each.

“We are talking of close to a million litres arriving in the country through Port Bell on Wednesday morning,” said Ategeka Henry, the Marines officer, adding that it was mainly petrol and gas, imported by Shell.
Last week, 22 fuel tanks with a similar loading capacity, consisting mainly of diesel, already arrived through the same route.

At Nalukolongo, a major depot for Gapco petroleum company, fuel supplies that were received last week were already dwindling.

“We received over 500, 000 litres last week, mainly by truck, but they have all been used,” said GAPCO manager Rashid Abed. “We are expecting more through Mutukula.”

He said the issue of piling up stocks was impractical, adding: “The demand is so enormous that we supply all that we get immediately.”

Reports from Mbarara indicate that police personnel have been deployed to stop illegal price fixing at the three filling stations that still have supplies.

The Mbarara district police commander, Ivan Nkwasibwe, said the petrol stations were selling a litre of petrol at between sh3,400 and sh3,700.

The stations in Mbarara town that still have stocks are Kobil, PetroCity and Caltex. According to the Police commander, the normal price for petrol in Mbarara should be sh2,570 per litre.

“It is theft to charge beyond the normal price. We shall not accept that”, Nkwasibwe said.

“Pump prices are set by the government. If they want to sell at higher prices, let them establish their own petroleum companies.”