When The Brewing Business Turns Deadly

Last Friday, once again Kenyans were shocked as they watched the death toll rise of consumers of the illicit brew – changaa in Shauri Moyo Estate in Nairobi’s sprawling Eastlands area; which as of today has reached 9 according to the Daily Nation.

Changaa is a local brew that resembles vodka, Tanzania’s Konyagi and Uganda’s Waragi. However unlike it’s East African sisters, changaa has not as yet been legalised.

This is not the first such case in Kenya. In June 2005, 49 people died in Machakos (Eastern Province) after they consumed an illicit drink suspected to have been laced with a poisonous chemical, and it seems that such cases are not going to end easily.

A regular changaa drinker was quoted in the media after learning that five of his friends had succumbed to the Shauri Moyo brew as saying it was "bahati mbaya", bad luck.  However he added: "I will go back to drinking busaa, although it is more expensive, (than chang'aa)".  

Indeed as John Mututho the Member of Parliament behind the recently passed Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill asserts, that the deaths and blindness were caused by extra chemicals added to the brew and “sold to unsuspecting poor Kenyans in the name of chang'aa".

Some commonly used additives include methanol and ethanol. Methanol has a high human toxicity. If ingested, as little as 10 milligrams can cause permanent blindness destroying the optic nerve while 30 ml is potentially fatal. Based on its abilities to change human consciousness, ethanol is considered a psychoactive drug. Death from ethyl alcohol consumption is possible when one’s blood alcohol level reaches 0.4% and a blood level of 0.5% or more is commonly fatal.

If the historic Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill which repeals the Chang’aa Prohibition and Liquor Licensing Acts receives presidential assent, this will mean that brewers of such liquor will have to face stringent quality standards and inspections. However with the current enforcement agencies so far being unable to cope in preventing future loss of life and blindness, it seems that more has to be done to ensure that the vendors adding dangerous substances to these brews are stopped.

Unfortunately the business opportunities in this sector remain attractive for those seeking to make a quick buck. Changaa is popular because it is cheap. A mug costs Sh10 (approximately 20 US cents). It also has the added attraction of being readily available, though not on  supermarket shelves nor established bars.

And it is not just slum dwellers who have taken to changaa. Crippling taxes have forced formal sector brewers to hike their prices and the informal sector brewers have benefited from more customers due to their low priced product. However, unlike Kenya Breweries or Keroche industries who have to go through rigorous quality standardisation and expensive marketing to manufacture their products and attract customers, changaa brewing is a home based cottage industry where not even a hygiene inspection happens. Word of mouth is generally the marketing tool, and if the price remains low – customer loyalty is assured.

For the Bill (if enacted) to make any significant inroads in preventing the deaths that occurred in Shauri Moyo from happening again, emphasis must be placed on ensuring proper regulatory structures are put in place. The National Campaign Against Drug Abuse Authority (NACADA) has so far been instrumental in making the public aware of the hazards of excessive alcohol consumption. However, the main thrust of their campaign has been the “don’t drink and drive” approach. This means nothing to the changaa drinkers whose main mode of transport is their legs.

Though the objectives of the Bill are noble, there has to be a holistic approach that also educates the changaa brewers and consumers on the dangers of additives. However, as these vendors generally tend to operate from their homes, the Bill does not give cognisance to their informal business culture. To say that brewers will have to be licensed will only mean that many will continue to operate illegally. For those that do get the licence from the proposed District Committee’s, the prescribed licence fee will be passed onto the consumers meaning loss of market.

Even the application for licence procedures will be an issue for brewers who will have to provide “a comprehensive proposal on the nature, orientation and other justification for the establishment of the alcoholic plant” amongst other requirements.

It remains to be seen whether the Bill will make a difference in the lives of the  changaa consumers and brewers. Ensuring that the barriers to entry remain attractive but also strictly enforcing quality standards by providing the relevant agencies with appropriate resources will most definitely prevent future loss of life.

On Kenya’s burgeoning culture and civilisation of poverty

Amnesty International recently published a report titled, Kenya: The Unseen Majority: Nairobi’s Two Million Slum-Dwellers. In its introduction, the report states that “life is precarious for the approximately 2 million people who live in Nairobi’s informal settlements and slums. They make up over half the capital’s population yet are crammed into only 5 per cent of the city’s residential area and just 1 per cent of all land in the city. They are forced to live in inadequate housing and have little access to clean water, sanitation, healthcare, schools and other essential public services. They also live under the constant threat of forced eviction from the makeshift structures they have made their homes.”

Out of these slums, a culture of poverty is emerging. Commonalities of value systems continue to grow, resulting in an “us” versus “them” civilisation. As anthropologist Oscar Lewis who studied the phenomenon of the culture of poverty argued, the burdens of poverty lead to the formation of an autonomous subculture as children and the youth become socialized into behaviors and attitudes that perpetuate their inability to escape the underclass.

More recently, Nobel Laureate Prof. Wangari Maathai alluded to disempowerment or alternatively powerlessness the breeds strong feelings of marginality, helplessness, dependency, and social exclusion of the poor.

This culture of poverty is now growing into a civilization which according to Samuel Huntington author of “The Clash of Civilisations”, can be described as the highest cultural grouping of people.

Huntington further points out common elements for civilization-building such as language, history, customs, and ultimately subjective self-identification. In Kenya, the poor have languages that are not heard of in Nairobi’s central business district. A slum-dweller describes themselves by gender, youth, ethnic grouping, but ultimately by their state of poverty. Above all else they are poor.

Even though the term “civilization” may seem an over-statement, the number of people with such commonalities and who uphold their poor culture as ultimate, do indeed form a civilization. Civilizations can and do involve a small number of people. Shared experiences of police harassment, disintegration of family units, crime and gender based violence hold the poor together pitting them against the rich "wabenzi's" who live in leafy high-cost neighbourhoods just adjacent to Nairobi’s slums.

Civic responsibility and entitlement seem to have been eradicated in the slums. And now, even more alarming has been the birth and growth of sub-civilisations of poverty. Examples of these include the emergence of youth groupings such as the Mungiki, Taleban and Baghdad Boys who reign in the slums. These groups have in turn provided a basis for youth identity which have overcome historical divisions of tribe. The hopelessness of their lives has coalesced their interests. Unemployment, being targeted for arrests solely due to their youth, and an insensitive political elite that bickers more over their SUV’s than empowering them has meant that any ideological or ethnic historical difference has been over-run by commonalities in disaffection.

WHY BOTHER?

Kenya’s slum population is growing rapidly at nearly 6% annually, and according to the World Bank, “nearly 10 million individuals are packed into miniscule ‘tin cans' within the Nairobi slums...” Thus it is imperative that measures be immediately instituted to prevent a clash of civilizations between the poor and the rest of Kenya.

During last years post-election violence, Nairobi’s slum and informal settlement areas became de-facto no-go zones. Kibera was barricaded by the dreaded General Service Unit, only allowing those that could prove they had work outside the slum passage. Entrepreneurs within the slum were hit by shortages in basic commodities, because the illegal barricades would not allow any deliveries. Only charities such as the Red Cross allowed in to provide relief.

Civilizations are meaningful entities, and as Huntington writes, though the lines between them may seem elusive to the ordinary eye, the fault lines are indeed sharp and real. As Kenya’s economy grows and infrastructure brings people more into contact with one another, consciousness of civilization of the poor and the civilization of the rich is growing faster than bandwidth.

Unless something is done, firstly starting with the full and immediate implementation of Agenda IV of the National Accord, the fault lines between the civilizations of the “have’s” versus the “have-nots” will continue to further divide. After all, it is possible for one to be half Luo and half Kikuyu. It is impossible to be half rich and half poor.

Update: Read the Kenya Special Local Tribunal Bill to try perpetrators of post-election violence in Kenya here