NPF chickens come home to roost

Government and the country’s oil companies have been meeting regularly since last year, but to date, no firm answers have been hammered out on when the state will pay more than P775 million owed in cumulative arrears connected to the National Petroleum Fund (NPF).

Between December 2016 and now, the local fuel industry has been in a state of under-recovery – where pump prices are below actual prices incurred by oil companies in importing fuel. The NPF, which, amongst other duties, collects levies from motorists and is supposed to support the subsidy by paying the oil companies, is on its knees. For every litre of fuel motorists pay for, 13.5 thebe is remitted by oil companies to the NPF raising hundreds of millions of pula annually, but the Fund only had P98 million as at March this year.