Tanzanians are bracing for tougher times ahead as fuel prices across the country rose with effect from Wednesday, despite government subsidies.

According to the Energy and Water Utilities Regulatory Authority (Ewura), prices for petrol, diesel and kerosene have risen to levels never recorded before in the local market.

As from July 6, 2022, a litre of petrol now costs Tsh3,220 ($1.38) in Dar es Salaam up from Tsh2,994 ($1.28) last month, while that of diesel will now be Tsh3,143 ($1.35) from Tsh3,131 ($1.34), the regulator said in a statement.

Retail price of kerosene will be Tsh3,442 ($1.48) a litre up from Tsh3,299 ($1.41) last month.

In some places like Kagera, a litre of petrol costs up to Tsh3,435 ($1.47).

However, the prices would have been much higher without the government’s Tsh100 billion ($42 million) monthly subsidy that began June.

“Oil marketing companies are free to sell their products at a price that gives them a competitive advantage provided that such price does not exceed the price cap,” Ewura said in a statement signed by its director general Modestus Lumato. - THE CITIZEN

KIGALI, June 29 (Xinhua) -- The Rwandan parliament on Wednesday approved a budget of 4.6 trillion Rwandan francs (about 4.6 billion U.S. dollars) for the country's 2022/2023 fiscal year that starts next month.

The budget represents an increase of 217.8 billion Rwandan francs compared to the 2021/2022 revised budget.

"The budget reflects successes made in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic through vaccination roll-out and other measures as well as the economic recovery that started in 2021. It has also considered the crisis brought by the Russia-Ukraine war, which is affecting the recovery efforts by rising oil and food prices," Uzziel Ndagijimana, Rwandan minister of finance and economic planning told legislators.

The budget increase will focus on financing the post-pandemic economic recovery efforts as well as finance medium-term development objectives enshrined in the National Strategy for Transformation, he added.

The Rwandan government will fund the budget to a tune of 80.5 percent, according to the ministry of finance and economic planning, while external grants will account for 906.9 billion Rwandan francs, which is 19.5 percent of the total budget.

According to Ndagijimana, the Rwandan government will allocate 2.7 trillion Rwandan francs to scale up agriculture productivity, create jobs, support private sector development and strengthen climate change mitigation measures.

The funds will also be channeled toward increasing access to electricity and clean water, support urbanization and settlement, improve the national road network, scale up adoption of ICT, automate Umurenge Sacco's (Sector Savings and Credit Cooperatives) and implement agriculture de-risking and financing facility.

Out of the total budget, about 1.2 trillion Rwandan francs will be spent on improving quality and access to health and education, eradicate extreme poverty through scaling up of social protection programs, improve nutrition through early detection, provision of fortified foods and scaling up of early childhood development facilities.

The funds will also promote family and gender, sports and culture as well as disaster management through enhancing disaster preparedness, response and recovery, according to the ministry of finance and economic planning.

Last month, Rwanda announced an additional 250 million U.S. dollars for the Economic Recovery Fund as part of the country's efforts to support the recovery of businesses severely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Economic Recovery Fund prioritizes sectors including tourism and hospitality, manufacturing, transport and logistics, agro-processing, education, and small and medium-sized enterprises linked to domestic and global supply chains, said Rwanda Prime Minister Edouard Ngirente last month while launching the second phase of economic recovery fund.

Rwanda's economy recorded a growth of 10.9 percent in 2021, according to data from the National Institute of Statistics of Rwanda (NISR).

The agency in a report for the year 2021 said that the sustained recovery during the second year of the COVID-19 pandemic managed to reverse the 3.4 percent contraction recorded in 2020. - Xinhua

JUBA, May 6 (Xinhua) -- The South Sudan said Friday it has kicked off plans to nationalize the country's oil industry in the next five years.

Awou Daniel Chuang, Undersecretary in the Ministry of Petroleum told journalists in Juba, the capital of South Sudan, that the ministry has started the process of readying the oil sector to be nationalized and stop dependence on foreign help.

"When we talk about local content, we talk about maximizing the benefits and to maximize the number of people who are working in the oil industry but it does not mean it will be 100 percent, we have already reached 90 percent. For us to reach that level of nationalization, it will not take us less than five years for us to have quality engineers and quality managers, IT can take us about five years," Daniel said.

South Sudan, whose oil fields were destroyed during the civil war, has largely employed foreign engineers to produce and export the country's crude oil to Sudan, where it is processed and sent to the international market.

Daniel said the ministry has constructed a geological data center that will be used for training and technical operations for the institution as part of the nationalization process.

He also said the government has purchased three aircrafts to be used for geological mapping of the areas in the country and it has as well constructed a hangar at the airport to facilitate the process.

Daniel, however, noted that the country's production of crude oil reduced by over 20,000 barrels per day over the last three years as a result of flooding in the country.

He said the South Sudan government is working with Egypt to build dykes and drenches to address the challenge of flooding.

South Sudan is the most oil-dependent nation in the world, with oil accounting for almost the totality of exports, and around 60 percent of its gross domestic product (GDP), according to the World Bank. - Xinhua