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Fuel crisis : lies, inconsistencies, contradictions and delusions intertwine, who and what to believe?

Burundi has been experiencing a fuel crisis for almost 43 months. It has deteriorated further in recent months, pushing Burundians from border regions and the commercial city Bujumbura to go to Congo or even to Tanzania to get supplies, unable to go to neighboring Rwanda following the closure of borders. President Ndayishimiye, his Prime Minister, Ministers of Finance and Energy and the President of the Lower House have divergent, even contradictory, explanations for this crisis. In their speech, some of these leaders contradict themselves, others prefer to lie and simply delusion.

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On June 14, the Burundian Minister of Finance was summoned to the National Assembly. That day, the deputies analyzed and adopted the bill establishing the State’s general budget for the 2024-2025 financial year. Some deputies had denounced two days before, when the president of the Court of Auditors went to explain the analyzes of his office, the current crisis which is shaking the small East African nation, especially the persistent shortage of fuel, one of them asking their peers not to talk too much « because there are some who go home on foot ». Minister Audace Niyonzima explained that it is the lack of foreign currency which is the main cause of this shortage.

“The biggest problem is linked to the fact that we import oil products. However, imports are made in foreign currencies which are very insufficient today,” admitted Audace Niyonzima, reproaching a certain opinion for “pretending to forget it « .

Delusions and lies of Daniel Gélase Ndabirabe

The same day, the very sulphurous Speaker of the National Assembly lied across the board regarding the fuel crisis.

Daniel Gélase Ndabirabe, Speaker of the National Assembly of Burundi

“You returned to the fuel crisis, but I wonder : these people who hide fuel in houses where someone can be surprised with 5 thousand liters, 3 thousand liters of fuel… why does this person act like this? »

“And you say that there is no fuel while among you there are some who hide it in the houses or your friends but you say nothing. And they resell this fuel at very exorbitant prices. And you pretend to be surprised like the colonists do. The settlers impose conditions on us that keep us in poverty and they come to mock us, telling us that African countries will never develop while they are plundering us,” he said.

Wish for the reintroduction of the death penalty

« Don’t do like them (the settlers). People hide fuel so that the people revolt. Even now, look, there are trucks bringing in fuel. But where does this fuel go? We will ask the government to reintroduce the death penalty for anyone caught stealing fuel because it amounts to impoverishing the country and the population you mention. Let them be killed on the spot, perhaps the situation will improve a little,” said Daniel Gélase Ndabirabe.

Rwanda, eternal scapegoat

According to Daniel Gélase Ndabirabe, there are State agents who tear their hair out and spend entire sleepless nights « so that fuel can be available ». He regrets that there are people who sell “Burundian” fuel in Rwanda.

« Are there no Burundians who go abroad to say : don’t give fuel to Burundi, Burundi is not solvent. Why don’t you denounce them? It’s the government that provides the foreign currency to import fuel but some store it to resell it in Rwanda », accused the Speaker of the National Assembly of Burundi.

Cut fingers

Addressing MPs who denounced excessive taxes and the current widespread crisis the country is going through, Mr. Ndabirabe hoped that their fingers would be cut off.

Audace Niyonzima, Burundian minister in charge of finance in the broadcast of members of the government, June 28, 2024 in Makamba (SOS Media Burundi)

« What do you want? Aren’t there any of you who sell it in foreign currency? Or your friends? But you bark : there are no more currencies, the country has no foreign currencies! How do you manage to build these villas that we see? These are not the currencies that you are hiding? And you refuse to pass these currencies through the BRB (Bank of the Republic of Burundi). Your fingers used in exchanging these currencies while the country and its inhabitants become poorer and poorer should be cut », he declared in a very severe tone, wishing that « disruptors of the economy should be hanged on a pole ».

President Neva contradicts himself and gives random figures

Neva says the fuel crisis is partly due to a lack of foreign currency in the small East African nation, a result he says of weak exports and mismanagement“ of the few resources we have”. But he contradicts himself, asserting that Burundians have bought countless vehicles, motorcycles and tricycles in particular, while accusing some of his collaborators of preventing oil companies from giving fuel to « non-solvent » Burundi.

« Just for these first six months of this year, Burundians have purchased 2,739 vehicles, 5,575 motorcycles, 900 generators, 10,287 water pumps, etc. Based on this, you understand how much the new mouths that consume fuel!”, he declared on the sidelines of a crusade marking his four years in power, in Nyabihanga district in Mwaro province (central Burundi), at the end of last June.

And added, « Since 2020 until now, Burundi has imported 33,168 vehicles, 40,922 motorcycles, 7,784 generators, 16,638 water pumps », blaming Satan and Burundians « who lose hope very easily ». The Head of State did not give the source of these figures.

Enemy civil servants

According to the Burundian president, there are senior officials who go abroad to tell oil companies not to give fuel to Burundi, arguing that « the country is not solvent. » For him, they do it with the aim of “raising the population against the institutions”.

“But I forgave these people because they are tools of the devil,” he clarified.

Depreciation of the Burundian currency against the dollar admitted

In Burundi, imports are mainly in US dollars. Évariste Ndayishimiye admitted in Mwaro in a mediocre sermon to say the least, that the value of his country’s currency continues to deteriorate against the dollar.

« Do we import in local currency? Or does the Burundian franc buy the currencies? » he questioned in front of a large audience of people that had come to attend the crusade, the majority being farmers and some having been forced to participate.

However, a few months earlier, Ndayishimiye himself had stated that the Burundian currency has nothing to envy of the dollar of the world’s leading power.

« An avocado costs 100 francs in Nyabihanga (Mwaro province, central Burundi) and its price in the United States is 5 dollars. Isn’t it that 100 Burundi francs has the value of 5 American dollars? They should not lie to you », he calculated on the sidelines of the celebration of the day dedicated to women of the CNDD-FDD, the ruling party, on March 16, 2024 in the political capital Gitega.

Ndakugarika’s false statement

Burundian Prime Minister Gervais Ndirakobuca alias Ndakugarika estimates that each Burundian household has at least three vehicles.

Gervais Ndirakobuca, Burundian Prime Minister in the broadcast of members of the government, June 28, 2024 in Makamba (SOS Médias Burundi)

« The appeal I can make to Burundians is this : stop this habit where the child must have a vehicle, the chief of the household must have another one just like his wife. The more the car fleet grows, the more the demand for fuel is becoming great in particular,” launched Mr. Ndirakobuca in a public broadcast by members of the Burundian government on June 28 in Makamba in the south of Burundi.

However, on April 25, 2024, Gervais Ndirakobuca recognized that the lack of foreign currency which is in full swing is the main cause of the general crisis that the small East African nation is going through. He explained to the deputies the reasons for the non-financing of the only Burundi Brewery Company (Brarudi), which is no longer able to produce following the lack of foreign currency.

« We are in the process of seeing how to find a solution. But we must consider the priorities. Can we sacrifice the money intended for the purchase of fertilizers and give it to Brarudi today?, » insisted Gervais Ndirakobuca who admitted that the government has no answer to the crisis shaking the country, blaming the 2016 sanctions, following another controversial term of the late President Pierre Nkurunziza. According to him, “these sanctions plunged the country into the abyss after 2020 because between 2015 and 2020, we still had some savings.”

Uwizeye’s obligatory dishonesty

The Burundian Minister of Energy, Ibrahim Uwizeye, has hardly spoken on the fuel crisis since the start of the year. But in recent years, he had often promised Burundian consumers that he would find sufficient quantities of fuel in government stocks at the port of Dar-es-Salaam in Tanzania – statements that he shared with President Ndayishimiye. The “honest” minister, according to the head of state, does not deviate from the path of his boss even today.

Ibrahim Uwizeye, Burundian Minister in charge of Energy in the broadcast of members of the government, June 28, 2024 in Makamba (SOS Médias Burundi)

“Burundians must understand that the automobile fleet has greatly expanded since 2020 and equipment requiring fuel consumption has multiplied to a very high degree,” declared Ibrahim Uwizeye in the Makamba show, without being too exhaustive as his boss. He also recognized the lack of foreign currencies and poor exports from Burundi.

Like Prime Minister Ndirakobuca, the Minister of Energy blamed donors who no longer finance the Burundian government’s budget even though the demand for fuel has since doubled.

Who to believe? These two words were written by Willy Nyamitwe, now stationed in Addis Ababa in Ethiopia as ambassador to the African Union, the former senior advisor in charge of communications to the late President Pierre Nkurunziza, to taunt those who opposed to another controversial term of the latter, have never had as much meaning as today. In the meantime, Burundians risk transferring the fuel crisis to neighboring Congo. Vehicle owners and drivers largely fall back on the town of Uvira, in the east of the DRC, bordering Bujumbura province and the commercial city, which has caused the rise in the price of gasoline in particular.

A liter of gasoline has increased from 3,500 to 8,000 Congolese francs since Friday July 5. This pushed Congolese administration authorities to take drastic measures to discourage fuel trafficking via the Rusizi River, separating Burundi and the vast country of central Africa since the beginning of July.

“Burundi had never experienced such a crisis, even during the embargo period in the 1990s,” local, regional and international specialists agree, which President Neva acknowledges, preferring to rely on God.

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President Évariste Ndayishimiye at Bujumbura airport to welcome the Ethiopian president, February 9, 2021 (SOS Médias Burundi)