Hii ishu ngumu.
Mimi naona kuna mis-communication ya kijinga kati ya serikali na wauza mafuta.
Let us be fair. Makampuni mengi ya mafuta bongo yananunua stock za muda mfupi, which is month by month. The prices in the last couple of months and days have been dropping from a range of 7% to 43% or so. Currently they are around $35 bbl, not sure about the price of processed products. But, following the trend of crude oil. Imagine an importer orders a shipment of processed products today at a price reflecting $35 of crude oil. It takes a month for a shipment to arrive. Going by the previous months' trends, that price could fall to say $30 by the time the shipment arrives in Tanzania. So you expect the importer to sell at a price reflecting $30 per bbl, while he bought the stock at a price reflecting $35? The only way an importer will have large stocks is if the price of oil is increasing. But so long the trend is downwards, these problems will continue.
Ndio maana USA when prices were low, they were stocking their reserves! If we had reserves, we could do that, but Africans we dont think that way!
EWURA/The government should be aware of what is coming in and when, and be able to be fair in regulating the price. But at the current crude oil price fluctuations, you will end up seeing EWURA/government changing prices every week.
I also ditto that the government should control resources within the country, but not importation of Oil. Chances are, if the government controlled the importation, they will end up working at a loss, and Tanzanians will be paying for governemt insitutions working at a loss. This is a business, and African government institutions are not good in making money. When it comes to Energy, every country in the world outside Europe/USA, they are nationalising their Energy industry (be it Oil, Gas, Coal). Apart from the big 5 or 6 companies, most oil companies are government owned.