Minister of industries, mines and energy Modestus Amutse says he will clarify aspects of the anti-fuel hoarding directive he issued on Thursday.
The directive stated that service stations should only refuel vehicles, and not jerry cans or oil drums. This raised concerns with stakeholders in the farming and tourism industries, who depend on service stations for fuel to refill their generators and machinery.
Responding to questions from The Namibian, Amutse said the ministry’s intention is to prevent panic buying, not to prevent those who need fuel from purchasing it.
“I will direct the [fuel] retailing industry to assist the people who need assistance. The aim was simply to manage the panic buying so we don’t create artificial demand in the country,” Amutse said.
The directive included an exemption for customers with a consumer installation certificate – often obtained by members of the agricultural and construction sectors.
However, the Fuel and Franchise Association (Fafa) on Friday said the vast majority of Namibian farmers do not hold such certificates.
The certificate process is designed for fixed, purpose-built fuel storage systems.
The farmers who are refilling their drums are typically farming operations who buy fuel from service stations in bulk in order to refuel their agricultural vehicles, run their generators to pump water, and are geographically isolated.
“Agricultural fuel demand is operational and predictable, not speculative. It is fundamentally different from the hoarding behaviour the directive rightly seeks to prevent,” Fafa chairperson Michael Ludeke said in a letter to the minister seen by The Namibian.
The tourism and hospitality industry also voiced concerns with the new directive. The Federation of Namibian Tourism Associations (Fenata) on Friday called on the tourism ministry to intervene in the restrictions.
“Much of our tourism product outside urban areas involves transport, offered by game drive vehicles, as well as boats along rivers, apart from the use of generators for power generation in areas that are not connected to the national grid,” chief executive of the Hospitality Association of Namibia Gitta Paetzold said.
She said the tourism industry regularly fills up on fuel with fuel containers at service stations and then transports the fuel to the remote areas where the industry operates.
Paetzold added that Fenata members in Zambezi have already been informed that service station owners have been instructed not to sell any fuel by containers.
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