Désiré Nimubona
One night in April, Bujumbura taxi driver Jerome Kabwana dodged bullets as he tried to cross the Ruzizi River, which separates Burundi and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. A friend he was with didn’t survive.
“He was shot in the head and sank into the river,” says Kabwana. Despite that experience, Kabwana still makes the trip, smuggling fuel to Burundi. “We go in a group. If two are killed or arrested, the rest can reach Burundi with fuel.”
In January, clashes between smugglers and security forces in Cibitoke province left several people injured, according to local outlet Isanganiro. If arrested, smugglers face up to two years in prison. The smugglers don’t only face arrest or bullets – the river itself is teeming with crocodiles.
“We don’t understand why the government fails to provide fuel and then punishes those who bring it,” says Bahati Etienne, a 39-year-old from Bubanza who has participated in the risky hustle.
Noah Gakiza, a 25-year-old gas station worker, is also baffled. “There is no fuel in the country,” he says. “Even the officials who shoot and jail the smugglers buy from the black market.”
Across Burundi, petrol stations are wrapped in plastic, “No Fuel” signs adorn empty pumps, and vehicles languish in kilometre-long queues. Some wait three weeks to refuel.
Across the river in the DRC, Burundian smugglers buy the fuel from traders like Amina Zitu. Every weekend, she hauls 20 to 50 jerrycans of fuel to the river, paying bribes to soldiers at DRC checkpoints since a July 2024 ban on fuel trafficking. “It’s dangerous,” Zitu says. “But it’s harder for those waiting for fuel on the other side.”
It started with bad politics
Burundi imports all its fuel and needs foreign currency to do so. Its forex largely comes from aid and exports, especially tea and coffee. Flows from both sources have been erratic over the past decade. In contrast, inflation has soared, hitting 41.6% in June. The Burundian franc has also nosedived against the dollar, making fuel imports more expensive.
Burundian analysts trace the disruption of foreign-currency flows and export revenue back to the 2015 political crisis, when former president Pierre Nkurunziza sought a third term. Civil society and opposition supporters revolted, accusing Nkurunziza of violating the Constitution and the 2000 Arusha Accords that ended the Burundian civil war. The government’s trade and World Bank harsh response to protests and a coup attempt pushed activists, journalists, and many other Burundians into exile.
Amid the political unrest, Burundi’s donors pulled back. Foreign aid fell sharply in 2015 and has flowed unevenly since, according to figures from the World Bank. Exports also fell and didn’t recover to pre-crisis levels until 2022, United Nations Comtrade data shows.
By early 2023, the central bank’s foreign reserves could cover only one or two weeks of imports, down from three months before the crisis, Faustin Ndikumana, a Burundian economist, told Agence France-Presse. The forex problems were the trigger for the fuel shortages.
However, government officials continue to blame the fuel deficits on “hoarders”. “There are those who hide fuel to sell it to the rich in lavish Toyota Jeep cars,” President Évariste Ndayishimiye told a crowd in Bujumbura on 12 August. He said combatting fuel hoarders was the top priority for Bujumbura’s new provincial governor.
Monopoly and price fixing
The government has accused private importers of speculative hoarding and created a national oil company, Société Pétrolière du Burundi (Sopebu), to take control. The Sopebu X account publishes lists of fuel stations it has supplied but these updates are not provided daily and the shortages remain severe.
The prices on the black market running parallel to Sopebu are staggering. A 20-litre can of gasoline now sells for up to 400,000 Burundian francs ($134) on the black market – more than many families earn in a month.
It is five times higher than prices set by the government, which wants to enforce price fixing to control the situation.
Public transport has shrunk and become costlier. People wait hours for a ride at bus stations. Fares had tripled by May 2024.
The government capped the rates private transporters can charge and steeply fines operators caught charging more, which led to a drivers’ strike across major towns in late July.
The shortages have battered other sectors too. In December, tea factories – vital exporters for foreign-currency inflows – reported receiving less than half their diesel needs, delaying production.
Borrow more?
Some activists are calling on the government to resolve the crisis by borrowing more money. With a debtto-GDP ratio of 35%, Burundi has been one of East Africa’s more conservative borrowers. Gabriel Rufyiri, from the anti-corruption organisation Olucome, suggests that a $30-million loan would stabilise supplies.
Ndikumana argues for wider reform: “Burundi must increase exports, maintain good relations with donors to end sanctions imposed in 2015, and strictly manage what remains of the central bank’s hard currency,” he says.
Other experts call for negotiations with neighbouring countries to secure stable imports.
As shortages persist and enforcement intensifies, Ndayishimiye’s dream of turning Burundi into an “emerging country” by 2040 grows more distant.
Meanwhile, people like Kabwana continue to see potential death on the Ruzizi River as a risk worth taking to keep their families – and country – moving.
Are there any partnerships related to renewable energy? Is there any investment in solar or wind farms?