Tanzania is scheduled to start controlling retail fuel prices next Monday when an indicative pricing issued by the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority will be effective.
The move is aimed at forcing down retail prices of petrol, diesel and kerosene which, despite a price plummet on international markets, were kept high in Tanzania to force up the country's inflation from single to double digits.
Learned sources said that the indicative pricing would be at least 27 percent lower than the prevailing retail prices now at the country's filling stations.
Any petroleum dealers in the country selling their products well above the indicative pricing will get punished and the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority will soon publish punitive measures.
The punitive measures for an offense will include a fine of no less than 3 million Tanzanian shillings (3,000 U.S. dollars) and the revoke of fuel retail licenses.
Haruna Masebu, director-general of the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority, told the public that the indicative pricing would be published weekly in accordance with the prices on the international markets.
The director-general added that petroleum dealers in the country are allowed to compete with one another so long as they do not exceed by 7.5 percent of the indicative pricing computed by the regulatory authority.
Tanzania relies solely on imported petrochemical products which affect the country's inflation to a large extent. Though international prices have been dropping down, from 144 U.S. dollars to below 40 dollars a barrel, petroleum dealers in Tanzania have not been follow suit accordingly.
Local critics and Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete have blamed these dealers as exploiting the people and government of Tanzania.
The government of Tanzania has planned to bring down the country's inflation to 7 percent by June last year but the annual inflation rose to double digits in September and shot further up to 12.3 percent in November.
(Xinhua News Agency January 2, 2009)