2 January 2009
editorial
Kampala — THE current fuel shortage across the country has pushed the price of petrol up to as much as sh10,000 a litre. Post-election violence in Kenya at the beginning of last year cut off Uganda's route to the sea and triggered shortage of fuel and other commodities that saw fuel pump prices shoot through the roof.
Later in the year, the enforcement of the lorry axle requirements and the repair of the oil pipe line from Mombasa to Eldoret put further strain on supplies and are responsible for the current shortage.
The pipeline will take a while to be repaired and it will take some time before the private sector responds to the axle rules and steps up the number of trucks on the route, so we can safely say that the fuel shortage will persist in the New Year. But this need not have been the case.
There is very little government can do immediately because the issues causing the shortage are structural, but in the short term they should encourage the use of rail transport by oil importers to increase supply and alleviate the current situation.
But in the long term, government should be more serious in developing alternative routes to the sea otherwise current shortages will continue to be a perennial affair.
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