For more than ten days, gasoline and sometimes even diesel fuel have been scarce at the pumps in Brazzaville, the Congolese capital, where economic activity has been disrupted. Motorists are wondering about the reasons for this shortage without finding an answer from the authorities. Even the last Council of Ministers on Thursday May 5 did not consider the subject.
With our correspondent in Brazzaville, Loicia Martial
Night fell for more than two hours. In this gas station in the center of Brazzaville, the queue of cars stretches over a hundred meters.
At the end of the line, Christ, a 30-year-old taxi driver, is exhausted. But, he hopes to have a few liters of gasoline.
” Here I am trying to have the fuel that will allow me to go out tomorrow. Lately we don’t work every day, but rather every other day. Today you can work, the next day you have no fuel. So you have to look for it “, he laments.
Consequences of the shortage: on most of Brazzaville’s arteries, traffic has become fluid. The taxi fare, usually fixed at 1000 FCFA, now costs double.
The Gaddafis, that is to say the clandestine fuel dealers, take advantage of this: they have tripled the price from 595 FCFA at the pump to 2000 FCFA.
A situation far from helping this taxi driver: “ To work you need fuel. I do not work. There are no recipes. I am blocked. At home, it doesn’t work, the children don’t eat and they cry. I’ve been stuck at the station since this morning. I don’t have anything to eat “, he complains.
Almost every year in Brazzaville, fuel shortages are observed, sometimes without the government giving the reasons.