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.Standard