Correspondent|PRESIDENT Emmerson Mnangagwa’s decision to review the price of fuel upwards seems to have worked wonders as the situation at most fuel stations across the country has vastly improved.

According to the New York Times of Tuesday 29 January 2019, President Mnangagwa had no choice.

“Mr. Mnangagwa arguably had no choice, since the government could not continue subsidizing fuel, and the protests were inevitable,” said the opinion piece titled Robert Mugabe’s Long Shadow.

“Fuel was the big conversation dominating our landscape in the last two months. On the 12th of January, ED announced a price review and a raft of other interventions. This appears to have worked wonders. Fuel usage habits have changed and fuel is now available,” said Nick Mangwana, the
Permanent Secretary for Information, Publicity & Broadcasting Services.

Finance and Economic Development Minister Professor Mthuli Ncube also explained that the fuel situation had normalised following President Mnangagwa’s interventions to contain the artificial shortages.

He defended the fuel of $3.31 per litre saying, “Our fuel was being bought for something like 40 cents (USD) per litre and was being sold internally and also externally to other countries.

Truckers were coming in to fill up and offload in Zambia. Imagine buying fuel for about 40 cents (USD) and then resell it in Zambia for over a US$1. So we closed that gap.”

The fuel situation was on the verge of getting out of hand, grounding emergency services like ambulances and fire tenders across the country.

Pictures of ambulances queuing for fuel were everywhere on social media.

For now, the problem appears resolved.

For how long will things remain steady? We await to see.