Kenya's fuel emergency isn't over yet. Rationing continues but new supplies are once again bringing the country's traders and motorists to their knees. Only ten days have passed since the government announced the end of the emergency, but already yesterday many gas stations especially in the north and northwest were empty and citizens are wondering how long it will last this time.
Above all, the random refueling has created the effect of piling up, so that every time a tanker truck is intercepted, people follow it and queue up first at the service station. It was thought that the emergency would end when the Government announced the increase in petrol and diesel prices. This happened on April 19, but after a week of new prices (about 9 shillings more per liter) and normal traffic at the pumps, the risk is that it will be hard again to fill up the tank.
Those who are paying the price in recent days are the independent oil traders, who have already been put on the grill in the past for their dishonest policy of keeping their stocks or selling them to the best customers with the price increase, although the Ministry of Energy Resources had not yet increased it. Now the global market is also avoiding them, because the increase in crude oil prices on the international market means that it is the big companies that are supplied first, being able to pay the importers in cash, while the "small ones" risk being left in the lurch or even being supplied by them, thus motivating a further increase in prices. Many small service stations have not even reopened, some others have taken the opportunity to carry out renovation work.