Minister of State for Matabeleland South Abednico Ncube on Friday afternoon had a torrid time trying to bring sanity at a fuel queue in Gwanda.

ZimEye.com sources from the town indicated that Minister was called by members of the Zimbabwe Republic Police to come and use his authority in trying to put order at a local filling station after queing motorists rejected police orders to reorganize the long fuel queue.

According to the sources, the town had gone almost eight days without delivery of fuel and all the four filling stations had run out of fuel. When eventually one of the fuel stations got delivery on Friday mid morning, nearly all the cars in the small town needed fuel resulting in a huge stampede and long queue stretching for over five kilometres.

Authorities at the filling station could not control the stampede and summoned police to sort out the matter. The motorists would not have any of the police instructions to reorganize themselves resulting in police summoning the Minister to come and sort the matter.

Minister Ncube tried to address the drivers ordering those who were already inside the garage forecourt to drive out. The drivers again would not have any of the Minister’s orders.

“He tried hard to order the drivers out of the forecourt with no success as they all vowed that they would not leave unless they get fuel.

The embarrassed Minister had to leave the filling station after over half an hour trying to impose his authority on the motorists. Before he left he instructed the filling station authorities not to serve the fuel until the motorists adhere to his orders.

The ZimEye.com sources said that the filling station remained closed through the night with the motorists still unmoved.

Addressing the crowd of about 200 motorists at the filling station, Ncube acknowledged that the government had failed to solve the fuel crisis asking Zimbabweans to corporate with government and offer ideas on how to solve the crisis.

“He all but agreed that government was battling to solve the fuel crisis and called on all citizens to bear with the government a little longer,” said the sources.

Efforts to contact Ncube for a comment on the incident were not successful.

Meanwhile, the sources indicated to ZimEye.com that they were extremely disappointed with the Minister’s intervention on a matter that is always solved between the motorists and filling station authorities.

“That was too low for the Minister, ” said one of the sources.

“There was no need for the Minister to leave his office and come down to interfere in such trivial issues. “