KAMPALA (Commodity Online) : Amid looming fuel shortages, Uganda on Tuesday announced fresh plans to sell the Jinja Oil Reserves.

In a statement, Uganda's energy ministry said the government does not have the money to maintain the reserves.

This will not be the first time that the country's oil reserves are being put up for sale. The earlier deal that was awarded to Libya's Tamoil to manage the reserves was cancelled by the government following procurement irregularities.

Uganda started building the oil reserves in Jinja, Nakasongola, Gulu and Kasese in the 1970s. However, only the Jinja one was built with a capacity of 30 million litres. The facility needed sh31.23b to refurbish and restock.

In 2007, following Kenya's post election violence, a decision was made to restock the fuel reserves in the country with a capacity of 30 million litres but couldn't complete due to various reasons.

As a result, Uganda suffers acute oil shortages whenever there is a disruption in the supply line from Kenya.

Uganda relies on oil companies whose limited facilities can hardly store fuel to last the country 10 days. The country consumes 2.2 million litres daily and demand grows by 7% annually.

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