Whip on illicit brews

Preparation of illicit brews called Chan'gaa that has been banned by the government of Kenya.

The president’s directive to destroy all the illicit brews in the country was a great idea and well welcomed. This was the best idea to save the thousands of youth who have all along been consumed by this monster. Someone argued that the youthful Kenyans were drinking all the way to their graves and I tend to agree with this move. Kenyans and their elected leaders have acted on the president’s directive without delay.

However, a lot of people have turned on properties of the beer manufacturers and have ended up destroying everything leaving them counting big losses not only for the beer but also properties amounting to billions of shillings. This has displayed a bad picture of the Kenyan public. The way the destruction has been conducted leaves a lot of questions unanswered; this is because it has displayed a lot of politics taking centre stage. A question to ask ourselves is that are some manufacturers taking advantage of this in order to monopolize the market?

The gap has been left open because beer manufactured in Kenya is being destroyed while the imports are being spared. Could there be any one behind such mess trying to kill the Kenyan manufacturers? To make matters worse is that we have the Kenya Bureau of Standards that has done the testing and certifying some of the beer manufactured locally, the same beer is being destroyed and the licenses withdrawn. This raises more questions on the authenticity of the KEBS licenses and if they are doing their work properly.

The president should give more insights and a directive on how the destruction of illicit brews should be done and by whom. I urge the Kenyan public to restrain themselves from destroying someone’s property. It takes a lot of years to build a mansion but it takes a matter of hours to pull it down. As they say mkuki kwa nguruwe ni tamu lakini kwa binadamu chungu, the same could happen to you or your generations to come. This is not to mean that I don’t support the crack down on illicit brews; I support it 100% but a proper mechanism should be adopted and the licensing board should up their game.

Authored by; Ek Biwott