@urdjakademiksThe Minister of Hydrocarbons, Acacia Bandubola, faced an oral question about conditions at gas stations across Kinshasa, and her answer was straightforward: nothing is going badly, and the capital is not short on fuel. What people are seeing at some stations, she says, comes down to a mix of speculation and psychoosis, along with traffic slowdowns and SEP. As for the supply picture at the national level, she confirmed that physical strategic stocks are in place, and that operational and commercial stocks exist too. The way she frames it, what's actually happening is a slowdown in supply reaching storage centers in the city of Kinshasa, gas stations included. Not a crisis, which is why, in her words, fuel prices will not be going up. Her estimate is that things settle within a day or two. The other side of this: residents of Kinshasa, among them the people who drive taxis and the ones who ride motorcycle taxis, have been reporting shortages. That's the tension sitting under her statement, and she's the Tshisekediste woman making it.
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