To buy petrol for rubles show your passport

Amid the crisis, Belarusians face new and never-before-seen problems every day.

In particular, one can fill the car at near-border petrol station for Belarusian rubles only after showing a Belarusian passport.

The editorial office of abw.by has received a phone call from a reader who told that yesterday he was on his way back from Poland in a car he had bought. The car had transit number plates. At a filling station in Brest he wanted to fill his car for Belarusian rubles, but he was denied service and said that cars with foreign number plates are filled for foreign currency only.

We remind that on May 30 Belneftekhim concern gave a task to the filling stations of Belorusneft production association (this state firm holds a monopoly for near-border filling stations) which are situated in the frontier zone and in the major motor-roads to ensure selling of fuel to non-residents of Belarus for foreign currency only. It was written in the letter from the concern that petrol should not be sold for rubles for car owners with foreign number plates. Operators of filling stations are to bear responsibility for failure to fulfil these instructions of Belneftekhim concern leadership. In this way Belneftekhim is trying to grapple with “petrol tankers”, when Lithuanians, Poles and other foreigners change dollars at market exchange rate, and they go to near-border filling stations to fill their cars by the petrol which is cheaper than in their countries.

But is it legal to deny a citizen of Belarus a possibility to fill the car for Belarusian rubles? As abw.by was explained by the spokesperson of Belneftekhim concern Maryna Kastsyuchenka:

- If a citizen can confirm his status of a citizen of Belarus, for instance, by showing a passport, one is sold fuel for Belarusian rubles. If the car has number plates of a foreign country, the citizen must prove by documents that he had bought this car, and was not buying petrol for another person.

So Belarusians still can fill up their cars at near-border filling stations for Belarusian rubles. Otherwise they can call a hot line of Belneftekhim: 269-01-15 (phone in Minsk).