By Dorothy Nakaweesi
The ministry of energy and mineral development has maintained that current fuel price hikes are not justified, since much of fuel on the market today was procured before escalation of the Middle East conflict.
Over the past weekend, several Shell stations were selling petrol at Sh 5,280, a 3.9 percent increase from December levels.
Total Energies stations on the other hand posted slightly higher prices a Sh 5,299, while City Oil- another key player, sold petrol at Shs 5,100, up from Shs 4,990 in January.
The steady rise comes despite earlier government assurances that there would be no immediate impact from the Middle East tensions resulting from the Israel-US-Iran war.
The ministry of energy director of communications, Dr Patricia Litho says government is closely monitoring the situation and engaging dealers.
“We are engaging OMCs that hiked prices prematurely based on the knowledge that these are stocks acquired before the conflict”, she told Daily Monitor. Dr Litho added “we however, request the public to bring these pumps to our attention. We could have missed them in our monitoring processes”.
Earlier, Energy minister Ruth Nankabirwa had reassured the country that Uganda National Oil Company (UNOC) held sufficient fuel stocks to maintain price stability in the short term.
Peter Ochieng, a regional fuel marketer, says rising global uncertainties, particularly around crude oil supply could be influencing pricing decisions.
