Part of the national oil reserves in Jinja that were toured by the MPs on Monday

By George Bita

THE Government does not have petrol in the national oil reserve in Jinja, Julius Bitature, the depot manager, has disclosed. According to Bitature, the 550,000 litres of petrol in the reserve belong to private fuel companies.

“There are 555,000 litres of petrol, 3.1m litres of diesel and 1m litres of paraffin. However, the Government only has diesel and paraffin in the reserve,” he told the natural resources committee on Monday. The MPs were on a familiarisation tour of the Jinja oil terminal.

They were accompanied by the energy state minister, Simon D’Ujang, and the permanent secretary in the Ministry of Energy, Kabagambe Kalisa.

Bitature said they lacked sufficient funds to maintain the depot that was set up during Idi Amin’s regime.

“We have old equipment that has a poor meter system for the fuel. Besides, the three tanks, which have a capacity of 30m litres each, leak because they are worn-out.”

Emmanuel Ddombo, the committee chairman, said Parliament approved a draft budget of sh45b for the maintenance of the oil reserves.

According to Kalisa, the Government last restocked the reserves in 1995. “The Government has not restocked the oil reserves for 13 years. The decision to restock them was taken during the recent fuel crisis.”

He clarified that 40 private companies store their fuel at the same terminal and at times borrow from the Government’s stock whenever they face a shortage.
MPs also toured the Bujagali dam, which is under construction and Naminya resettlement village. Kenneth Kaheru, the deputy construction manager, said they had so far constructed two coffer dams at Dumb-bell Island.

“The work is ahead of the schedule because of the diligent work by over 600 local workers and 200 expatriates at the site. Another 1,000 workers could be recruited soon,” Kaheru said.