ZERA finally suspends new urban fuel station licences following boom across the country
The Zimbabwe Energy Regulatory Authority (ZERA) has finally suspended the issuing of new fuel station licences in urban areas after a sharp rise in filling stations across the country.
ZERA confirms suspension
Speaking at an Environmental Social Governance (ESG) conference in Harare on Friday, 29 August 2025, ZERA’s technical services director, Engineer Man’arai Ndovorwi, confirmed the development.
The Herald reports that he said the regulator had identified gaps in the system that had allowed too many stations to be built in cities.
Engineer Ndovorwi explained:
“The issue of mushrooming of service stations in the CBD or in urban centres is, of course, of concern for us, and I think one of the challenges or loopholes that we had in our legislation was the licensing of these sites after they had obtained commercial rights in terms of development of these properties in urban centres.”
He said ZERA was now working closely with local authorities to change the by-laws.
“We are currently in talks with the local authorities to ensure that we revise the by-laws so that the actual permitting and licensing of these service stations is done before the development of these service stations, and so that we also amend our regulations to indicate the minimum distances that should be between service stations.”
Calls for minimum distances
The announcement follows admissions by Harare City Council that there had been chaos in permit allocation, leading to multiple service stations being built side by side.
Eng Ndovorwi revealed that ZERA is now pushing for a minimum spacing rule.
“In other jurisdictions, we find that the minimum distance between these service stations should be around 15 kilometres, so that is what we are also anticipating to happen as we develop our communities and move outside the CBDs to actually also do investment in rural communities.”
He said no new licences would be issued until the spacing and planning measures were finalised.
“So currently we are not licensing any service stations in urban areas, but at least we are also working around the issue to ensure that we have minimum safe distances between these service stations being established.”
Shift towards portable stations
The ZERA official also said the Government had issued a wider moratorium on urban development, which also applied to service stations.
He added that traditional filling stations in cities would eventually be phased out in favour of portable or containerised units.
“So we are now encouraging them to put containerised fuel stations, which are coming at 20 percent of the cost of putting up a service station. So this is actually a way to help issues of mushrooming of service stations in the epicentres.”
Containerised fuel stations are built inside standard shipping containers. The tanks are above ground, and the unit can be moved around by trailer when needed.
Eng Ndovorwi said this was the long-term direction for the sector in urban centres.
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The post No More Urban Fuel Stations As ZERA Suspends Licences After Sharp Rise Across Cities appeared first on iHarare News.
