- President Mwai Kibaki tried several things during his two terms to end the menace but was never successful.
- However, observers say that the influence of the key players stifled any meaningful change.
Image: FILE
After more than 20 years of high drama and little action, there seems to be light at the end of the tunnel as far as containing the disastrous alcohol problem in Mt Kenya region.
The recent multisectoral approach led by Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua and the Interior Principal Secretary Raymond Omollo has brought hope to the residents of the region.
Right from 2003 till last year, we have seen more than 10 major policy announcements about giving “lasting and final” solution to the problem that is slowly eating into the heart of the region.
But the elephant in the room has been the influence of the deep-pocketed and powerful players involved in the manufacture and distribution of alcohol in the region.
The sector is one of the most lucrative, and with lots of excess cash floating at all levels, it has been hard to reign in on the growth of the sector.
President Mwai Kibaki tried several things during his two terms to end the menace but was never successful. However, observers say that the influence of the key players stifled any meaningful change.
Kibaki tried to stop the excessive consumption through then National Security minister Chris Murungaru who introduced a draconian measure to curb advertising of alcohol in all mass media outlets in 2005.
This sparked debate because stakeholders argued that such an action would encourage the growth of the black market in the alcohol industry.
Observers also say that the ban on advertising in 2005 contributed to the growth of several illegal brands that just needed word of mouth recommendations.
Five years after Murungaru's intervention, the consumption of alcohol went from bad to worse.
And in September 2010, in what looked like throwing in the towel, President Kibaki signed the Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill, repealing the Chang'aa Prohibition Act and allowing the potent drink to enter the mainstream market.
Proponents of the Bill hoped that standardisation of the drink would have prevented future deaths from bad brews. This intervention fell flat, and actually led to an increase in dangerous drink consumption.
Part of the problem was the definition of chang'aa. The Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill did not clearly define chang'aa because there is no standard for the drink.
Though commonly made from fermented corn or sorghum, chang'aa can be brewed in many different ways. The drink's only defining quality is its extremely high alcohol content, commonly achieved by adding chemicals such as methanol or jet fuel. And this is what exactly happened.
In 2010, several experts in the Ministry of Public Health and Sanitation were worried that legalising chang'aa would have no impact on the illicit market.
Requiring the drink to meet basic food and safety standards would eliminate the use of dangerous chemicals, but could alter the effects felt by drinkers. Without those effects, the regulated drink could be ignored by habitual users.
The overall impact of the 2010 changes was the proliferation of alcohol manufacturers in the region. We suddenly saw the rise of alcohol billionaires, who took advantage of the new law to set up alcohol manufacturing plants.
And with weak supervision, they got involved in simple mixing of ethanol and jet fuel and packaging as “safe drinks”, which led to the situation getting out of hand.
In 2015, then Interior PS Karanja Kibicho started the campaign to eradicate illicit drinks from the shelves. However, this was a one-man show that did not last for long.
Perhaps learning from past policy failures, Gachagua and Omollo seem to have taken a completely different trajectory.
The recent meeting of all local leaders, particularly MCAs, to discuss the menace was a good sign. The bottom-up approach to seek solutions is the way out of the crisis rather than the top-down policies.
Media consultant and CEO of Health TV Africa