Ugandan parliament approves bill ending long decade of oil reliance from Kenya
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Uganda parliament on Tuesday passed the Petroleum Supply Amendment Bill 2023 to cut oil supply from Kenya
Uganda parliament on Tuesday passed the Petroleum Supply Amendment Bill 2023 to cut oil supply through Kenya.
The bill will now allow the state-owned oil company Uganda National Oil Company (Unoc) to source and supply oil to the domestic market.
During the debate of the bill, the Energy Committee’s chairperson Emmanuel Otaala explained that the bill would ensure that Uganda does not rely on Kenyan companies that were acting as middlemen.
He explained that the oil used to be imported by international companies, and then sold to Kenyan companies who later supplied them to various petrol stations in Uganda.
Otaala noted that the move was hurting its citizens given that the pump prices would then have to factor in the profits made by the international companies and the Kenyan companies in the process.
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If approved by President Yoweri Museveni, the bill will end the country’s decades-long practice of relying on Kenyan companies for oil imports.
MPs who supported the bill said it would reduce fuel costs by cutting out middlemen and “fuel cartels that arbitrarily influence fuel pricing”.
Uganda’s Energy Minister Ruth Nankabirwa recently said that the country needed to stop importing oil through Kenyan companies as it “exposed Uganda to occasional supply vulnerabilities where Ugandan oil marketing companies were considered secondary whenever there were supply disruptions”.
Uganda, a landlocked country, imports more than 90% of its fuel through Kenya’s Mombasa port and the remainder through Tanzania’s Dar es Salaam port, according to Ms Nankabirwa.
The country is also seeking to shift more of its oil transportation via Tanzania.
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