Ethiopia's ongoing fuel crisis is not a supply problem. It's a theft problem.
A court in Addis Ababa heard evidence this week of a systematic scheme in which government officials and private operators diverted 68 fuel tankers in July 2025 alone, funneling more than 2.6 billion birr worth of fuel into the black market while the country's gas stations ran dry.
The allegations, detailed by Addis Standard, reveal a level of corruption that goes beyond opportunistic theft. This was institutionalized looting, with officials from the Petroleum Sector itself providing the administrative cover.
According to prosecutors, Dibara Fufa, Deputy Director of the Petroleum Sector, allegedly facilitated unlimited fuel access for approximately 800 entities that either lacked proper permits or were entirely fictitious. These "ghost" investment entities would receive allocations, then divert the fuel before it reached legitimate stations.
The scheme worked in layers. Officials from sub-city Trade and Industry departments allegedly issued paperwork to make illegal fuel movements appear legitimate. Gas stations were instructed not to accept arriving tankers, creating artificial shortages and long queues. As panic spread and government-mandated price hikes took effect, the conspirators sold their hoarded fuel at massive markups—or smuggled it across borders where prices were even higher.
The corruption extended to digital systems meant to prevent exactly this kind of fraud. Ethiopia requires fuel transactions to go through the Telebirr digital payment system to ensure tax compliance and traceability. The suspects allegedly bypassed the system entirely, pushing nearly 10% of the country's monthly fuel transactions into an unregulated shadow economy.
The result: the government lost tax revenue, the formal economy ground to a halt, and ordinary Ethiopians waited in line for hours, sometimes days, to buy fuel at inflated prices.
