Petrol shortage raising tempers

After waiting in line with his car for more than an hour to fill up, Wisam Amir was still sitting close to a mile away from the petrol station, and getting irritated. He and queuing fellow drivers believe the petrol station managers in the capital keep half of every fuel consignment to sell on the black market, thereby creating an artificial shortage. They say police must be colluding with fuel station workers, because how else could the black market - usually children with plastic jerry cans standing on the side of the road - continue operating. "I was told the problem was over yesterday, but here I am in line again," Amir told IRIN in Baghdad, as he stood on a double-decker bridge that ironically takes drivers out of Baghdad to the Al-Dawrah Refinery, which turns crude oil into petrol. More than even the continuing problems of intermittent electricity and water supplies following the war this spring, people in Iraq seem to feel particularly insulted by fuel shortages, because their country is so rich in oil. To add injury to insult, the prices of petrol and propane continue to rise. One litre of fuel used to cost just a few cents, but has now jumped to about 25 cents at the pump, an astronomical increase for the average family. The black market price is even higher. Meanwhile, Coalition forces truck in fuel from neighbouring Kuwait at a cost of about $1.50 per litre. "I’m very angry," Ali Husayn al-Ruba'i, a truck driver, told IRIN. "It seems like American forces are not paying attention now. Maybe they enjoy seeing the problems of the Iraqi people." Gen Ricardo Sanchez, who commands US-led forces in Iraq, does not deny that something has gone wrong. He said the problem was one of distribution and supply, adding that fuel smuggling was a problem needing to be solved. Coalition forces have caught numerous ships off the coast of Iraq attempting to smuggle oil to Kuwait and other nearby countries. Moreover, oil pipelines continued being targeted by terrorists, Sanchez said. Large numbers of security guards had been hired to watch over the mostly above-ground pipes snaking around the country. "I’m not totally into production capacities, but I know we had problems with pipelines getting blown up," Sanchez said. Propane gas prices had also risen so quickly that some US troops patrolling Baghdad had created a new distribution point in Sadr City, a notoriously poor part of the city, said Lt-Col Fred Sellers, a civil affairs officer in the 2nd Infantry Division. "Liquid propane gas was getting out of hand in terms of price," he said, adding that newly trained Iraqi Civil Defence Corps members had been brought in to help organise the work. An oil refinery worker who declined to be named said the current shortage was being caused by corrupt oil-tanker truck drivers, and police colluding with them. Al-Ruba'i said he had recently seen a tanker truck parked in a side street, with its driver selling the contents. Stopping to talk with him, al-Ruba'i was told he could buy the entire truck-load of petrol if he wished. "There is no control at the refinery, so they can take petrol to someone else, rather than the petrol station," al-Ruba'i said bitterly. "There’s no control over the fuel station either." Asked why the new Iraqi police did not stop the black marketers and truck drivers, he said many of them were accepting bribes to look the other way. "There may be cooperation between the police and the oil refinery workers, but that’s only part of the problem," Isam Jihad, an oil ministry spokesman, told IRIN. Shortages occurred when pipelines were damaged, but the ministry was now importing some fuel from Kuwait and Iran, which should help get rid of the queues. "Because of terrorism attacks, the pipes have been damaged," Jihad said. "The main line from Bayji to Dawrah was attacked three times," he noted. Corruption is also endemic in the country, and it is hard to eliminate, according to Jihad. Most petrol stations were state-owned, so there was no incentive for workers to try to stop the theft and bribery going on, he added. "Now it’s not easy to find a good person to serve his country," he asserted. "This is the task: to find honest people. It needs time and sacrifice." Meanwhile the queuing drivers cannot understand why there was no waiting just a few short weeks ago and now it is back again. Just after the end of fighting in April, there were petrol queues around the capital. They dwindled rapidly, but then grew even bigger in the last two weeks. "I think the US military police should deal with this," Ashraf Fatih, told IRIN as he started pushing his car forward in the queue. "If workers are selling jerry cans, they should go after those who have the jerry cans. If it’s workers keeping half of the fuel, they should get the workers," he said.