ABIDJAN (AFP) — Ivory Coast's economic heart Abidjan was crippled by a transport strike over fuel price hikes for a third day Wednesday as motorists queued up at petrol pumps following rumours of an oil shortage.
Tens of thousands walked to work in the sprawling seaside city as communal taxis and minibuses, a cheap means of transport for locals, remained off the streets.
However buses run by the state-owned public transporter Sotra plied normally.
Police fanned out across the city to pre-empt violence as a rumour spread through cellphone text messages that petrol was running out saw motorists form snaking queues outside service stations.
A police spokesman appeared on the afternoon news bulletin on state-run television to deny rumours of a looming shortage.
Meanwhile the former rebel New Forces group said Wednesday that prices of petrol and diesel were provisionally hiked by two and eight percent in the northern region it has occupied since a failed 2002 coup against President Laurent Gbagbo.
The New Forces said diesel would sell for 650 CFA francs against 600 CFA francs earlier while the price of petrol was hiked by 15 CFA francs to 565.
"These prices will remain in force until July 20," it said, adding they could be revised.
The new prices were still lower than in the rest of Ivory Coast, where the cost of a litre of fuel was hiked on July 7 by 29 percent for petrol and 44 percent for diesel, reaching 795 CFA francs (1.2 euros, 1.8 dollars) and 785 CFA francs respectively.
No violence was reported on Wednesday in the centre of Abidjan, where Sotra buses were damaged on Monday and Tuesday by protestors and a few taxi drivers were roughed up by youths for failing to heed the strike call.
The government attributed the increase, the first since July 2005, to rising global oil prices and the cost of state subsidies to maintain domestic oil prices at manageable levels.
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