Fuel shortage continues to aggravate Brazzaville residents

A fuel shortage that has plagued Brazzaville, capital of the Republic of Congo (ROC), for several weeks shows no signs of relenting in the immediate future. Minister for Hydrocarbons Jean Baptiste Tati-Loutard has attributed the high cost of fuel and petroleum products to the cessation of production at the Coraf (Congolese national refinery) plant, as well as to the US $5 billion debt the ROC government owes to banks for importing oil. "The prices will be revised downwards after the resumption of the activities of Coraf in the next month," Tati-Loutard told IRIN. The crisis is also due to ongoing hostilities in the Pool region, through which passes the railway linking the capital to the oil-rich port city of Pointe Noire. Goods trains have often been the target of Ninja rebel attacks. The crisis has caused motorists to queue for many hours - sometimes even all the day long - in the hope of obtaining a ration of fuel. "It is almost unbearable, given the amount of work we need to accomplish," Paul Richard Manou de Mahoungou, secretary-general of Caritas-Congo, told IRIN. "We can't even get the amounts we need in spite of our willingness to buy the fuel at higher prices." Except for paraffin oil, whose retail price has remained steady at 270 francs CFA (US $0.41) per litre, the price of petrol has risen from 325 francs to 385 francs, and the price of diesel from 425 francs to 460 francs. Not all are lamenting the crisis, however: "Qadhafis" - illegal fuel salesmen and women who ply the streets with bottles and jerry cans filled with petrol - have been doing great business. The resulting increase in fuel prices has caused Congolese - many of whom live on less than $1 per day - to sacrifice food allowances in their budget just so they can get to work. To avoid hunger at home, many heads of household now walk whatever distance necessary to reach their place of employment. To make matters worse, prices of certain staple foodstuffs have also risen due to higher transportation costs. Cassava, which used to cost 18,000 francs per sack, now sells for 25,000 francs. Today, 32 percent of Congolese suffer from hunger. The level of agricultural production in the ROC has remained low due to widespread conflict and the displacement of hundreds of thousands of people in the past decade in the country's highly productive central region, thereby increasing the country's reliance on imported food. Food security has deteriorated considerably in zones of conflict, and inhabitants of these regions have seen their food reserves depleted. The humanitarian consequences of the fuel shortage can even be life-threatening. "I saw a man die, because there was no vehicle with fuel that could get him to the hospital in time," a taxi driver, Ernest Nganguia, told IRIN.