SEP Congo company is in a state of payment cessation. Its main clients, the service stations, are struggling to pay the expected shortfall from the government. According to some sources, the stations will no longer be supplied at night and on weekends "due to the inability to pay for overtime". This has resulted in queues at several stations to stock up on fuel. Last Monday, April 22, some stations had set a limit gauge not to be exceeded by customers. "In some cases, sales were capped at 10 liters of fuel per vehicle," says a taxi driver.

In January of the same year, there was also another form of fuel shortage. But the government, through the Ministry of Hydrocarbons, had assured in a statement that there was no shortage in the city. "There is absolutely no fuel shortage in Kinshasa," was read in this statement from the ministry of hydrocarbons. The source instead mentioned that the company SEP Congo, was in the midst of maintenance work on its tanker trucks, which had "temporarily reduced its delivery capacity".

While the year 2023 was counted among those that experienced more than 3 serious crises in the oil sector, leading to an increase in fuel prices at the pump, the government had claimed to set up "a strategy", with commercial banks, to settle "on time" the losses and shortfalls owed to the oil companies.

In August 2023, the government had even announced its intention to settle the funds related to the shortfall owed to the oil companies in order to protect the purchasing power of the Congolese through the policy of subsidizing the price of fuel at the pump.

Dido Nsapu