Namibia’s Energy \u200bMinister has lifted a ban on Nasan Energies securing fuel \u200cfrom commodities trader Vitol imposed by competition authorities as a condition of approving a deal between the companies, a government gazette showed on Monday.<\/p>\n
Namibia’s Competition Commission \u200bbarred Nasan Energies from securing fuel from Vitol for five years \u200bin March as a condition of approving its acquisition \u2060of 52 Engen and Shell-branded fuel stations from Vitol unit Vivo Energy.<\/p>\n
However, \u200bafter Energy Minister Modestus Amutse in May granted Vitol a three-month exclusive fuel \u200bsupply deal to counteract fuel price volatility linked to the Iran war, he decided to lift the bar following a review.<\/p>\n
The decision is likely to deepen a \u200bpolitical row between government and the official opposition, Independent Patriots for \u200bChange (IPC) , which had previously called for Amutse to recuse himself from the review process.<\/p>\n
Senior \u200cIPC \u2060lawmaker Rodney Cloete told Reuters on Monday his party would ask Amutse in parliament this week under what process he had arrived at his decision, “and have not ruled out the High Court to have the determination \u200bset aside”.<\/p>\n
In his \u200breview ruling dated \u2060July 3, Amutse said he was required in exercising the review powers “to balance competition policy against wider \u200bpublic-interest considerations”, citing continuity of supply, consumer protection and \u200bmarket stability.<\/p>\n
On \u2060Monday the commission’s spokesperson said they would monitor for signs of market structure changes, and the emergence of any monopolistic behaviour or potential job \u2060losses.<\/p>\n
Vitol previously \u200bsaid wherever the company operated it complied \u200bwith applicable laws and that it was Namibia’s prerogative to determine the structure of its \u200benergy system.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
–Reuters–<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":24207,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"news-type":[44],"class_list":["post-38931","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"The decision is likely to deepen a \u200bpolitical row between government and the official opposition.","published_date":"","news_description":"The decision is likely to deepen a \u200bpolitical row between government and the official opposition.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38931","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38931\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38932,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/38931\/revisions\/38932"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38931"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=38931"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}