Presidential spokesperson, George Charamba has refuted allegations made form some quarters that there is a cartel controlling the importation of fuel into the country.
Zimbabwe experienced erratic fuel supplies a few weeks ago resulting in long queues at service stations as most of them had run dry. Former advisor to President Mnangagwa, Chris Mutsvangwa reportedly said Sakunda Holdings has a monopoly over the importation of fuel in Zimbabwe resulting in the shortages. However, Charamba has rejected those claims. He said
Cartel, in economic terms, implies collusion, so you cannot identify one person and say there is a cartel. That term means few suppliers of a product are colluding to create entry barriers to competition and so one person cannot create a cartel.
Meanwhile, what has caused a change in the market is a combination of BP, ZUVA, IPG and Trafigura who are in partnership with Sakunda and already you have more than five players in the market and how do you talk of a cartel or a monopoly.
We import our fuel products, which means ultimately everything is a function of disbursement from the central bank and disbursement is on the basis of the magnitude of your market share. You don’t expect company X which has 20 outlets in the country to get the same allocation with a company that has more than 200 outlets.
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