ALL AFRICA NEWS AGENCY BULLETIN No. 42/02 (c)

From Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>
Date Sun, 10 Nov 2002 14:25:23 -0800ALL AFRICA NEWS AGENCY BULLETIN No. 42/02 (c)
October 28, 2002

Kenyans Are Drinking Themselves To Death
When the going gets tough, the tough gets going, so it is said, only that in Kenya, the tough have resorted to potent killer drinks to cope with the pains of ailing economy.  Our special correspondent Robert Otani found during a research that the "tough" were wasting away to their graves.

"Even if you put off the light, we shall continue to  drink," said 38 year-old James Kariuki to the woman selling a popular traditional drink to him and his colleagues at Mai Mahiu, a trading centre 30 kilometres west of Nairobi.  But the woman had not switched off the oil lamp, nor did Kariuki
and his four co-revellers continue drinking.

For not only did the father of four become instantly blind, but he also died after swallowing a few mouthfuls of the deadly concoction.Three of his colleagues also died almost immediately.  The other, a young
man barely in his 20s, was luckier; he was saved by a neighbour who rushed him to a nearby dispensary.  But his eyesight could not be saved, he became permanently blind.

This incident happened about four years ago, but the incidence of Kenyans consuming cheap uninspected alcoholic beverages has become so commonplace that one wonders if these brews will not decimate the population unless the government clamps down on them.

"The Church has a role to play as well," says Rev John Omolo, an evangelist in Kisumu, Kenya's second city.  "We cannot sit back and watch as our people, most of them in the prime of their ages, kill themselves in the name of entertainment."

Call it Changaa, Busaa, Kumi Kumi, Sorghum Baridi, El Nino, Sweet Engineer, Tornado, Medusa or what you will, but cheap and mostly illicit brews are killing Kenyans by their tens everyday.

The brews have permeated all parts of the country as the unemployed and poorly paid workers strive to find a more affordable stimulant, and as the conventional legal beers and spirits become more and more out of their reach.

Kenya's devastated economy has brought also into the market, cheap and legal locally distilled spirits going by such flamboyant names as "Tyson", and they sure pack a powerful punch.  All of these drinks have the property of doing one thing  -  sending Kenyans to their early graves.

And the culprit is the government, for it has failed to put in place a proper legal framework for the control, manufacture, marketing and consumption of the suspect drinks.  Thus, brewers, distillers and even retailers mix the drinks with all kinds of additives to make them more potent and to boost their earnings.

One such additive is the lethal methanol, which boosts the concoctions potency and distends sellers pockets.The trade and industry ministry in May proposed that brews such as the Changaa spirit and Busaa, a fermented cereal flower brew, be legalised to help revitalise the tattered economy, which last year registered a negative growth rate for the first time since independence from Britain in 1963.

This, the ministry officials argued, would also be fillip to the struggling alcoholic beverages sector, especially after South African Brewers relocated to Tanzania from Kenya early this year.

The argument is that Changaa and Busaa, the traditional drinks in towns and villages, have ceased to be what they once were - cheap and safe alcoholic beverages.

In neighbouring Tanzania and Uganda, Changaa has been legalised and is selling in bars in the form of Konyagi and Uganda Waragi.  Its manufacture and sale are controlled by the government to avoid adulteration.

In Kenya, opposition MP Karisa Maitha recently recommended in parliament that Mnazi, a popular palm wine at his home turf on the Indian Ocean coast, be legalised to curb its abuse and to provide a means of steady livelihood to the local tappers and sellers. The illegal retailers also use such additives as formalin, the chemical for preserving dead bodies, bang and sisal juice, ethanol, fertilisers, battery water, baking powder and methylated spirit.  Occasionally, things go awry and the lethal methanol finds its way into the poorly policed shebeens.

About two years ago, 100 residents of a Nairobi neighbourhood were killed after they consumed an illegal spirit calling itself Kumi Kumi, or Ten Ten, in reference to its price of 10 Kenya Shillings a measure.  Others went permanently blind.

In December last year, about 500 women went out into the streets of Nyeri town in central Kenya to demonstrate against the drinks, arguing that they were making their husbands impotent.

"If they were legalised, some minimum basic standards could be applied.  As things stand now, the government cannot tell what the contents are.  How do you analyse what is illegal; it wont be available?" laments Dr Eric Achoki of the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA).

NACADA boss Joseph Kaguthi admits that the government is aware of the presence and dangers posed by the beverages. "But the police are compromised through the  'protection fee' from the manufacturers and the sellers," he stated.

In some areas, says NACADA, the situation is so bad that even primary school children, including girls, have access to the drinks. "We have evidence that school girls are turning more to alcohol," Kaguthi says.Pupils each save money and pool it to buy minipaks.  Cheap legal spirits are sold also in 30 ml polythene satchets.Dr Achoki says brewers of drinks such as Kumi Kumi buy ethanol, which is
used in making the legal spirits, from backstreet vendors at $44 for a 20 litre jerrycan.  Then they mix it with water to get 80 20 litre jerrycans of a highly potent drink.Each of the 80 jerrycans retails for $10.  This means that from the initial $44 investment, a dealer makes up to $800.  But occasionally, the backstreet vendors cannot tell methanol from ethanol, and they end up
selling the poison with devastating repercussions.

What makes the problem even more difficult to tackle is that the Kenya police are also in the retail business.  "So who will arrest the police dealers," wonders legislator Paul Mugeke, who represents Mathare, a Nairobi slum neighbourhood notorious for the making, selling and consumption of the
drinks and therefore crime.

Thus, argues NACADA, the only course of action likely to curb the menace is to legalise some of the concoctions, or to make the legal ones more affordable.  But the latter is unlikely, especially with Kenya Breweries Limited being back to its beer brewing and merchandising monopoly after
South African Breweries, its only strong rival since 1998, withdrew from
Kenya.