The Citizen (Dar es Salaam)
19 December 2011
editorial
Fuel prices are expected to drop by a comforting margin this week, if indicative prices announced by the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority over the weekend are anything to go by.
Coming hot on the heels of reports showing that inflation had jumped from 17.8 percent to 19.2 percent in the span of only one month, the falling of fuel prices by margins of over four percent offers some solace to overburdened consumers.
Fuel and food, as we know, are the major players when it comes to inflation. When either of them cost more, life becomes expensive as much more money is spent on quantities of the same measure of products.
There is a disturbing trend, though, every time Ewura moves to announce the bi-weekly indicative fuel prices. Either the products go missing or prices are adjusted upwards almost immediately. The former is true when the prices are lowered and the opposite when they go up.
The scenario was the same this weekend. Most petrol stations reported shortages as soon as Ewura announced lower prices! What this means is that Ewura has not learnt from the past and appears increasingly helpless when it comes to enforcing its legal mandate.
We have not forgotten the crisis we went through a few months ago, when the country almost ground to a halt after petroleum dealers held the public ransom over what they considered a move to eat into their profits when Ewura lowered prices.
Everyone knows what it took to end the crisis. Despite the punishment meted out on some of the dealers, they are determined to ensure only their profit-driven concerns determine the rules of engagement.
It is saddening when Ewura appears hopeless and toothless to enforce its own mandate. It would be useless to consumers to continue with the price indicative formula if no one is ready to enforce it.
As consumers have lamented before, it is pointless to lower the prices only for the product to disappear and emerge on the black market at much higher prices.
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