Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South)-Government will not regulate the pricing of the newly available Diesel 50 as a way of promoting it but will expect fuel stations to maintain pricing within reasonable margins as the country moves towards cleaner energy.
Diesel 50 is expected to be 5 to 7 cents expensive than the regular diesel 500.
Speaking at a sensitization workshop in the capital Harare on Wednesday Energy and Power Development Permanent Secretary Partson Mbiriri said government will only provide an oversight role on the pricing.
“The service stations that are currently providing D50 include Total, Puma, Engen, Petrotrade, Zuva and Track”.
“Gvt is currently not regulating the price in order to promote its use by the public but we will monitor because as government we respond to what the citizenry does, but if we see that the pricing is getting unreasonable we will put a cap to it”.
“The best way to play is to keep within the margins of reason in pricing”, he said.
Mbiriri said it was government’s advice that people switched to importing vehicles that paid heed to changing trends of energy and environmental awareness in line with the National Energy Policy.
“We are importing all and sundry vehicles but we can’t afford, as a developing country hard pressed in respect of revenues and forex, to import all and sundry throwing out money importing a vehicle that has already done its bit”, he said.
In an effort to curb any fraudulent selling of D500 as D50 the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) has purchased machines that will test the Sulphur content of sold diesel.
According to Gloria Magombo the Chief Executive Officer of ZERA the sulfur tester will estimate the sulfur levels in diesel at fuel stations.
“Since a number of stations are already selling it ZERA will continue to monitor and we will prosecute anyone who sells regular D500 as D50”.
“It will give assurance to consumers that their vehicles are being fed D50”, she said.
Magombo said D50 is being brought into the country by road and that had brought about the price deferential of 5-7 cents which could however go down if the fuel came in through the pipeline.
Due to the low Sulphur content D50 causes less pollution and damage to the vehicle and is a precedent of the D10 which the country has earmarked to be using by 2020.
Though most African countries, especially those with old refineries, still use fuels with high Sulphur content Burundi, Kenya, Morocco, Tunisia and Rwanda have already successfully moved over to D50.
Morocco actually has a hundred percent population access to clean energy.
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