Advertisement

When elephants fight, expect long lines at petrol pumps

Sunday August 14 2011

There is a traditional African saying that frankly puzzled me for a long time, not that that is a difficult achievement for a “traditional” African saying. The sanitized version goes something like this: “When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled.” The beauty of a good African saying is that it states the obvious in a deep and meaningful way, leaving the listener to attempt to derive great wisdom from a simple observation. The real skill lies in applying the saying to the appropriate situation.

Dar es Salaam has been a dry city in the past week. While the unseasonal rains have been welcome, cooling down the city and giving us hope that this will boost our hydroelectric production, a not-so-silent battle of elephants has been trampling all over Tanzanians’ lives and livelihoods. In response to the wild increase in fuel prices that has been dragging us all dizzily in its wake in the past few years, The Establishment took it upon itself to practice a little bit of command economy. It dropped a few taxes here and there to reduce the price at the pump and then proceeded to tell retailers what the price at the pump should be.

I can understand the motivation. Cheaper fuel is a wonderful way to buy some political goo will at a time when things are going rather poorly for The Establishment. The electricity situation has improved slightly, but not enough to elicit any gratitude from the chattering classes let alone the non-chattering classes. Because industry and business have had to rely on fuel-guzzling generators to compensate for the lack of electricity. Then there are all those Tanzanians who can’t bear the thought of going to bed without the gentle lullaby of an asthmatic generator in the background. It is not a bad time to be in the fuel business.

Our government has a taste for raising revenue from captive taxpayers, so they have traditionally levied the pants off petrol. I suppose that it is decent of them to back off a little to reduce the amount of taxation that gets passed on to the consumer. On the basis of that, perhaps it does make sense to then demand that fuel retailers reflect the drop in price at the pump. But this is 2011 and Big Business has become an elephant in its own right in the past few years.

Is there a dirtier business in the world than that of petroleum? As an end consumer, I am always amazed by the reasons fuel retailers come up with not to ever reflect a drop in the price of petrol at the pump.

The most common one is that they have bought the fuel at high prices and so must keep selling the more expensive stock at high prices so as to recoup their costs at the very least. Add in there the vagaries of the world market and exchange-rate shenanigans among other sophisticated tools of modern capitalism, and retailers can effectively confuse the argument in their favour.

Advertisement

It seems that no matter what else is going on, fuel prices will always increase, taxi drivers will always have a reason to extort higher fares and public transport operators can also squeeze a few more vijisenti from the citizens. I am not sure, but I think this is the kind of thing that economists refer to as “growth.”

When you are just a blade of grass in this equation, all you see is the bottom end of two, maybe three or four elephants vigorously negotiating the terms of their economic power over each other. You can hope not to be trampled but the truth is that you will be. The Establishment may just have introduced the right amount of coercion to tip the fight in its favour. Someone has raised the threat of military involvement, which is always an effective gambit in a war of attrition like this one.

But the reason I have always had reservations about the African saying in question is that grass is such a sedentary, passive word for people being subjected to the fallout of these power games. I much prefer the Americanism that says: “When life gives you lemons, make lemonade.” And then sell it for a profit. You see, that is much more in keeping with the reactions that I have been undergoing and observing in Dar.

One might have expected Tanzanians to riot, or protest the lack of fuel, and the fact that that hasn’t happened is not because of complacency.
Instead, what has been coming through is a thriving black market in petrol, and a lot of wry humour. Not to mention social media updates promising a fine and subtle revenge, perhaps at the ballot box, perhaps through boycotting certain fuel retailers. Either way, we’re drinking lemonade while the elephants dance.

Advertisement