By Chisomo Phiri
The Petroleum Importers Limited (PIL) has on Monday offloaded about 446,000 liters of petrol in the country brought by rail from Nacala in Mozambique.
The situation raises hopes of easing fuel scarcity in the next few days in the country amidst acute forex shortages, which have made it extremely difficult for fuel importers to purchase the commodity.
PIL General Manager, Martin Msimuko told 247 Malawi News that they expect another 255 thousand liters within the week.
“Currently, we have brought in 446,000 litres by rail from Nacala and we expect another 255,000 within the week,” he said.
He further said they are also loading 700,000 litres of diesel which will come via trucks.
“We are also loading 700,000 litres of diesel by rail from the same port of Nacala .
“We are also in the process of loading close to 3 million litres of petrol to come by trucks from the ports of Beira and Dar es Salaam,” he said
Msimuko was optimistic that they will be able to beat the forex shortage saying that they are engaging with the banks to support them with forex so that they import adequate fuel supplies.
He admitted that forex still remains a major setback in bringing adequate fuel supplies in the country.
He said :”We are engaging with our banks to support us with the same so that we can have adequate supplies in the country.”
In August this year, PIL unveiled plans to sign an agreement with a supplier to be paid in the local currency for fuel imports but kept a tight lid on the company name.
It said the agreement woulf see 35 million litres of fuel purchased.
According to Reserve Bank of Malawi, the country requires $3 billion annually to meet import requirements, but only produces about $1 billion.
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