Mugabe travels to Libya to discuss fuel situation

Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe has jetted off to Libya "to pursue discussions about fuel" in the wake of countrywide shortages, a government spokesman told IRIN on Thursday. Mugabe's visit comes in the same week that the government banned the carrying of fuel in containers without a permit, and introduced a coupon system to crack down on profiteering from the shortages. Under the new rules, anyone needing to carry extra fuel must get a government permit or face arrest. This includes undertakers, farmers, millers and miners, and each sector must produce identification cards, letters outlining their reason for carrying fuel, and the routes and dates of travel. Department of Information spokesman Steyn Berejena said Mugabe was accompanied by the ministers of foreign affairs and energy and power development. Zimbabwe has battled to source enough fuel since 1999 when a foreign currency crisis struck. After admitting last year that the matter was giving him "a stomach ache", Mugabe introduced a number of measures intended to alleviate the situation. These have included allowing private fuel imports and easing customs regulations for fuel tankers entering the country. Although the price of fuel is fixed at Zim $450 (US 55 cents) for a litre of petrol and Zim $200 (US 24 cents) for diesel, scarcity has pushed the prices to between Zim $1,000 and Zim $2,000 on the parallel market. In April the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions launched a three-day strike in protest against fuel price increases, while in a scathing letter in the New York Times, US Secretary of State Colin Powell alleged the fuel shortages as one of the reasons many Zimbabweans were demanding political change. According to the pro-opposition newspaper the Daily News, Libya last year renewed a US $360 million fuel deal with Zimbabwe to cover imports for another 12 months. Under the arrangement, Libyan companies were offered assets in Zimbabwe, or import commodities such as sugar, beef and other agricultural products in exchange for fuel. However, the deal collapsed when Zimbabwe was unable to supply the goods, owing largely to the drought that hit the country last season, the newspaper said.