Zimbabwe secures loan from SA bank

The Zimbabwean government said on Saturday it had tentatively secured a US $75 million loan from South African banking group, ABSA, to finance fuel imports from Kuwait to ease a supply of oil in the country, news reports said on Monday. The energy ministry said the deal, the latest the country has signed with a consortium of foreign banks since the beginning of the year, only required the okay of the central bank. “We are confident that the outlook for liquid fuels, barring very violent exogenous factors, is set to make sustainable contribution to the Zimbabwean economy. We are not thinking of just putting out the fire, but we are thinking long-term,” Nicholas Kitikiti, a senior official at the ministry said. However, ‘The Daily News’ reported on Monday that the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe (RBZ) had thrown out the proposed loan. The official ‘The Herald’ said on Monday that fuel shortages remained critical in the capital Harare at the weekend. It said “endless queues” were a common feature in Harare at the weekend as motorists waited for supplies in vain with fears that the fuel shortage may spill into the Christmas holiday and disrupt travelling. However, a senior Noczim official told ‘The Herald’ on Sunday that over 14 million litres of diesel and about 400,000 litres of petrol, part of the oil procurement from IPG of Kuwait, had been pumped through from Beira to the Msasa depot since Friday.