09 Apr 2013

The Assistant Minister of Trade and Industry, Mr Keletso Rakhudu says he is not aware of any indigenous Batswana who have been pushed out of petrol station dealership.

Answering a question in Parliament, Mr Rakhudu said licenses for operating petrol filling stations were reserved for citizens or companies wholly owned by citizens under the Trade Regulation 2011.

He said the petroleum sector was fully liberalised to the private sector with dominance by multinational oil companies (MOC’s) in terms of infrastructural ownership and product sales.

Mr Rakhudu said the MOC’s were responsible for direct procurement, marketing and distribution of petroleum products. He said there were five MOC’s and at least 18 citizen owned oil companies operating in Botswana.

The MOC’s included Vivo Energy, Puma Energy, Engen Marketing, Chevron Botswana and Total Oil. “These companies have under their brands about 160 filling stations around the country of which 91 are both local dealer owned and operated whilst 69 are owned by MOC’s and operated by local dealers,” he said.

Mr Rakhudu said government had not set criteria for the oil companies in awarding dealership to petrol station dealers. He said individual companies had their own criteria for awarding dealership to operators of petrol stations.

The local oil companies, the minister said, were privately owned entities operating under a franchise business model. “I note that the petroleum sector has been facing challenges relating to the inadequacy of the current legal instrument to efficiently regulate the operations of the downstream sector,” he said.

In this regard, Mr Rakhudu said the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources was at an advanced stage of developing appropriate institutional and regulatory framework to realign the development of the sector.

He said an oil sector strategy and a petroleum supplies act were being formulated to ensure that operations of the industry are clearly spelt out.

Gaborone West South MP, Mr Botsalo Ntuane had asked the minister if he was aware that a lot of indigenous Batswana had been pushed out of petrol stations dealership.

Mr Ntuane also asked the minister to allay fears that the petroleum industry was not dominated by cartels, which owned several filling stations and acted in cahoots with petroleum companies to push indigenous Batswana out of the industry.

In addition he asked the minister to state the criteria used by the petroleum companies for awarding dealership to petrol station dealer.

MP Ntuane also wanted to know whether the minister had realised that some of the conditions, requirements and criteria used when offering dealerships to budding business people were too stringent and rigid which resulted in such entrepreneurs not being able to meet them. ENDS