- Writer, Basilioh Rukanga & Alfred Lasteck
- Name the person who wrote the story, BBC News, Dar es Salaam
The auto fuel industry is booming in Tanzania, but the lack of gas stations is a major problem.
Like Nigeria and other countries on the continent, Tanzania has also started to embrace the use of CNG gas instead of petrol and diesel.
It is safer for the environment than petrol, but it is because of its cheapness that more than 5,000 car users have switched to CNG in the country in East Africa, especially for transport vehicles.
The country’s government wants to return to the use of CNG in the country by the middle of the century.
Tanzania is rich in natural gas under water and CNG users pay half of what they have to pay for petrol.
This simplicity has attracted the attention of taxi operators like Samuel Amos Irube who did not find it difficult to spend 1.5 million of the country’s money equivalent to 620 dollars to change his car to use CNG.
But now that he needs to refuel, he spends a long time queuing at the gas station before he gets it in Dar es Salaam.
He said that there is frustration, where he usually spends at least three hours before drinking oil, but still he drinks more fuel where it is only 40 percent compared to the time he used to drink fuel.
The fuel line is not very long at Ubungo CNG gas station where it takes a long time to reach the road.
Medadi Kishungo Ngoma, spent two hours in the queue with his car and his luggage.
He told the BBC that he was among the first people to convert their car to CNG.
“Sometimes we have to call for work to be done,” he said.
He said there is no supply of goods to satisfy the increasing demand.
Sadiki Chritian in Mkumbuka spent three hours waiting for his three-wheeled motorcycle called Bajaji.
“The line is long, according to him, saying” there should be CNG stations like petrol stations.
But it’s the price that keeps people coming back.
“I pay 15,000 shillings (six dollars) to fill 11 kilos of my gas tank, which I can travel 180 kilometers,” said a person who gave his name as Juma, adding that this is half of what a person would pay. if he will drink petrol.
The effort to attract people to CNG in Tanzania was not accepted for more than 10 years but only in 2018 it started to be accepted.
Those leading the change say they haven’t seen an increase in demand.
Aristides Kato, the manager of a company in charge of converting cars to CNG in Tanzania, told the BBC that “there has been an increase in demand” recently for CNG users.
“We have found ourselves in a situation where there is a shortage of places to get it to deal with the increase in gas users,” he said.
Authorities want people to continue to use CNG because it is easier and safer for the environment that does not emit too much air pollution, according to the United Nations.
However, the manager of the Egyptian company Taqa Arabia, which owns a CNG gas station near the airport, said that the increase in demand is a sign that CNG has begun to develop in Tanzania.
Amr Aboushady said that his company wants to build many more gas stations like the development in Egypt.
Egypt was the first to use CNG in the continent, where nearly half a million of the country’s vehicles have switched to the use of two fuel systems since 1990.
Other African countries that have agreed to use CNG include South Africa, Kenya, Mozambique and Ethiopia.
Governments in Tanzania are ready to build gas stations and hope to attract private companies to enter the business.
A large CNG center has been built in Dar es Salaam by the national company TPDC which will continue to supply other small ones in other parts of the country.
