Why fuel shortages are spreading across Africa

IN BURUNDI, DRIVERSGDP are so desperate for fuel that they sleep on forecourts of petrol stations. Senegal has so little jet fuel that Air France’s flight from the capital, Dakar, to Paris has been stopping in the Canary Islands to fill up. Johannesburg has the same problem, which has caused United Airlines to cancel some flights from New York. From Kenya, which recently suffered its worst petrol shortage in a decade, to Lagos, where queues outside petrol stations backed onto motorways, and Cameroon, where thousands of lorries have been stranded without diesel, Africa has been short of the lifeblood of modern economies. “Everywhere, everyone is scrambling for diesel,” laments Anibor Kragha of the African Refiners and Distributors Association, an industry group.The economic costs of shortages are huge. They bring commerce to a grinding halt, shut the millions of businesses that have to generate their own electricity and force holidaymakers to cancel trips for lack of flights. This is a blow to tourism, a large contributor to in many African countries. The social impact is large, too. Hospitals cannot get drugs and ambulances are immobilised. All this makes politicians jumpy. Anger at shortages can quickly erupt in the streets.