Kenyan dealers threaten to suspend fuel purchases
By the AFREEQUE newsroom, based on Kenyans
Kenyan independent dealers are threatening to suspend fuel purchases, denouncing wholesale prices above the caps set by the regulator. The move could lead to the closure of petrol stations and shortages across the country, according to trade associations the Petroleum Outlets Association of Kenya and the Kenya Independent Petroleum Dealers Association.
The PJLOD says relatives were initially refused access to the detainees, with officials at the detention facility citing instructions reserving visits for lawyers. It also accuses the security forces of confiscating food brought by families, despite a prosecutor's order authorising family visits and the receipt of food aid.
The platform also challenges the judicial procedure: it maintains that the legal periods for police custody have been exceeded, that the five men have not been brought before an investigating magistrate and that they do not know the precise reasons for the prosecutions. It attributes some of the delays to the prosecutor's absence while on a mission abroad.
The five officials were arrested after a “ghost town” day organised to protest rising fuel prices and the cost of living. On 19 October, they were charged with disturbing public order, according to the announcement of the charges in Bangui. Central African civil society had called for the ghost town day on 11 October.
