Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni has explained why his country no longer buys fuel from Kenya.
On Sunday, Museveni stated that Uganda had stopped purchasing petroleum supplies from Kenya after discovering that intermediaries in Kenya were raising prices by 59 percent.
Museveni stated that the Ugandan government decided to prohibit Kenyan fuel imports in order to avoid punishing consumers who complained about the high cost of fuel.
“Uganda imports 2.5 billion litres of petroleum products per year, valued at approximately US$ 2 billion.” Without my awareness, our lovely people were purchasing this massive amount of petroleum items via Kenyan intermediaries. “A whole country buys from middlemen in Kenya or elsewhere,” Museveni said in a statement on X.
“Why not buy from the Refineries abroad and transport through Kenya and Tanzania, cutting out the cost created by middlemen?”
He stated that he learned of this information via whistleblowers and turned it over to Minister Mary Goretti Kitutu to handle, but the situation was never resolved.
“When I researched the issue, I discovered that we lose a lot of money by buying through middlemen.” We have now contracted with bulk and refinery suppliers that can provide us lower costs. I discussed it with H.E. Ruto, Kenya’s President, and our delegation is already in Dar es Salaam, meeting with Her Excellency Samia Suluhu.”
“I can assure the Inland East Africans of competitive petroleum products, free of distributions caused by middlemen,” he said. Uganda, North-Western Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Western Kenya, South Sudan, and the Eastern Democratic Republic of the Congo would all gain.”
