Fuel shortage hits South Sudan again

September 9, 2012 (JUBA) – Shortage of fuel has severely affected the government’s business in South Sudan as towns are facing blackouts while hundreds of vehicles line up at gas stations to try to get fuel.

The situation is visibly felt in the new nation’s capital, Juba, where public electricity supply has been cut for two weeks, leaving the city in darkness.

While some middle class home owners continue to use their private generators to power their homes, over the last three days the situation has deteriorated as the city began to run out of fuel.

Some government offices have ceased to function due to the lack of electricity, failing to run the day-to-day activities and forcing officials to leave offices in early hours of the day.

Officials blame the sudden lack of fuel to foreign traders who monopolize the fuel market in South Sudan.

A senior official who asked to remain anonymous told Sudan Tribune that the government had entrusted some major foreign companies trading in fuel to supply the capital and when the Bank of South Sudan could not give these companies the hard currency they needed to purchase fuel from the neighboring countries they began to cut off the supply.

In Juba the number of cars moving in the streets has reduced significantly for the last three days.

Despite being an oil producing country, South Sudan for the last seven years has depended on fuel imported from the neighbouring countries for its domestic consumption.

The country has no single oil refinery which would have produced the needed fuel for domestic consumption.

(ST)