Online Reporter
MANY urban Zimbabweans, especially those in Harare, will be surprised that there are swathes of the country where buying a few litres of petrol or diesel for a tractor, many types of farm machinery, a pick-up truck or a car is a complex process involving long and expensive trips.
In the old days of the large commercial farming estates, which usually had the required tanks and pumps and fuel was in any case available and delivered in 200 litre drums, small-scale farmers, and smaller rural businesses, were sufficiently near the bottom of the economic ladder not to ever need petroleum fuels.
But a combination of many Government policies has changed this, often quite dramatically.
There are the medium-scale and small-scale farmers who have started mechanising, and need regular supplies of fuel in their local area. Local home industries are growing in number and scale, and again need fuel at the business centre.
The statistics show that rural families are investing in better housing, and the falling prices of solar installations mean that among the new businesses being created in rural areas are those that install and maintain solar systems.
Transport is a necessity for these and many older rural businesses.
Transport operators are now fairly common in many communities, and can be very competitive as well as convenient, but if they have to drive 50 or 100km to fill a tank before driving back to do the work they are going to have to shove up prices to cover the extra costs and the loss of business, while driving empty around the countryside.
Car ownership is rising in rural areas, as the programmes to help farm households create multiple streams of income work, but again the motorists want to urban position where there is a service station round the corner.
There are a number of small towns and district centres that do have at least one service station, along with more isolated service stations in perceived gaps along the major highways.
But this still leaves large patches of rural land where the nearest such station run by a private-sector investor is some distance away.
Considering how rare it is for anyone in Harare, including the new housing areas, to be more than 5km from a service station, with many having several choices within that distance, especially with the continuous development of new stations, usually encompassing a take-away and a few convenience stores, it seems a bit rough that at least in this respect the rural-urban divide is widening.
The main difference between rural and urban areas remains the population densities. A lot of rural land is farmed, and even when people live in villages these are small.
This often means there is need for a large number of small businesses selling things like essential groceries, hardware and even liquor, along with small businesses built around one or two skilled people.
Up to now it has been exceptionally difficult to have a mini-service station lining up with the rest at a modest business centre within a few kilometres of everyone in a community.
Our energy regulator, the Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority, has taken the requirement on board, done the necessary research and is now rolling out nationwide a mini service station built in a standard shipping container.
The safety measures are doubled up, with both properly designed fuel tanks in the container and the container itself, and no doubt the operational rules and instructions include how to ensure adequate ventilation, cleaning and drainage.
The first container station has been tested in Gokwe-Nembudziya and has worked well, replacing the rough a ready jerry can piles and other horrors that included profiteering and dangers.
Obviously a key component of the network will be the tankers delivering fresh supplies of fuel, but a decent logistics and distribution system should be able to ensure that the tanker can visit a string of such stations on a single trip, so the costs will be contained.
An added bonus of the container stations is that they are fully portable, so they can be delivered by a flat-bed truck and, when something larger is built up by an investor, can be moved to an even more remote location.
Zera sees filling the gap for liquid fuels will allow local businesses to grow more easily and normally, taking advantage of cheaper fuel without the need for long journeys to buy it.
So instead of the urban-rural divide widening it goes back to narrowing without major premiums paid by rural businesses and consumers driving up costs.
The divide is not just in services and facilities. Solar power for housing, schools and businesses, solar pumps on boreholes, a denser network of clinics and schools, and now better rural business centres all ensure that what divide could be left will be a cost and price divide.
But innovation such as shown by Zera means that ever more costs will be almost the same.
And having the extra services at no extra cost is how we ensure that no place and no person is left behind.
