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The Road Transport Operators Association (RTOA) has described the 12 percent rate rise for fuel hauliers effected Wednesday by the Petroleum Pricing Committee (PPC) as inadequate and long overdue.
RTOA executive secretary Shadreck Matsimbe said Thursday the hauliers have been operating under the lower rate since last September when their proposals for a rate rise were not fully addressed.
“We were charging K7.32 per litre and the 12 percent translates to about 88 tambala. Since we got 50 tambala last September, the new rise means, in reality, we are getting an extra 37 tambala which is still on the lower side,” he said.
Matsimbe said foreign hauliers, on the other hand, charge about K8.72 (US$0.08) per litre.
“From the price increase of petrol from K86.85 to K94.30 per litre, only 87 tambala is for transportation,” he said.
Matsimbe also said local transporters’s rates cannot be cheaper than those offered by foreign hauliers like those from Mozambique, for example, whose source of fuel is right at the Indian Ocean coast in Beira, requiring no road costs as is the case with landlocked Malawi.
PPC said in a statement on Wednesday it recommended an adjustment in the road freight rates for fuel hauliers after considering changes that have taken place in the exchange rate and diesel prices since the last time the rates were adjusted.
“The freight rates were, therefore, adjusted by 12 percent on all routes while the diesel price went up by 21.92 percent,” read the statement signed by PPC secretary Ishmael Chioko who is also Petroleum Control Commission general manager.
Commenting on the safety net levies in the price of fuel, which have been blamed for higher prices, Matsimbe, who also sits on the PPC, said “the safety net levies are killing the country’s economy.”
He said under safety net one, government collects K6.70 per litre of petrol and K2.57 per litre of petrol under safety net two totalling K9.27 per litre while for paraffin, safety net one gives government K3.32 per litre and safety net two K3.35 per litre, adding up to K6.67.
“Some of us have been crying for an additional penny in the road maintenance levy which government pledged to adjust accordingly but this has not been the case and, instead of revising, government is collecting up to the magnitude of K9.27 per litre of petrol and K6.67 per litre of paraffin,” he said.
Fuel prices went up effective Wednesday with petrol going up by K7.45 from K86.85 to K94.30 per litre representing an 8.57 percent increase while diesel rose by K9.20 from K78.40 to K87.60 per litre and paraffin went up by K4.70 to K69.25 from K64.55 per litre.
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