Kenya beer wars spill over to Parliament

The battle for control of the country’s lucrative beer market has now been taken to the august House ahead of its re-opening on April 21.

In a letter dated March 25 new entrant, Keroche Breweries Limited, has written to Parliament’s Public Investment Committee asking the watchdog team to investigate alleged sabotage and unethical behaviour by rival East African Breweries Limited.

In the letter by obtained by the Daily Nation, Keroche’s boss Tabitha Karanja wants the chair of the committee Mithika Linturi to “institute a probe” into the current defacing of her company’s billboards and posters.

Remove materials

Keroche alleges that EABL - “through a massive and destructive campaign of bribery, coercion and intimidation”- had instructed bar owners not to stock the Summit brand of beer. It goes on to allege that EABL appointed agents to remove all of the rival’s advertising material.

Mrs Karanja plays the local ownership card in her bid to move the committee to act on the matter terming EABL a “foreign-owned entity” that’s destroying a “wholly Kenyan-inspired and owned company.”

The Naivasha-based Keroche Breweries recently launched Summit beer encroaching onto EABL’s market share.

But Mr Linturi told the Daily Nation that he had not received the letter in question, “but we’ll weigh the gravity of the complains and see how to handle all that.”

He said PIC would be meeting today and hoped that the matter of the letter would be discussed.

But even as Keroche petitioned the MPs, the Daily Nation obtained correspondence between Keroche and EABL concerning the “alleged destruction of Summit lager.”

One of the letters dated March 9, 2009 quotes an undated letter in which it accuses Keroche of making “serious allegations”.

Provide evidence

In it, EABL’s marketing director Debra Mallowah asked Keroche to provide “specific information together with documentary evidence to support the allegations.”

“EABL was never at any time involved in the destruction or removal of any advertising materials belonging to any beverages entity in Kenya at all,” Ms Mallowah wrote.

She noted that the largest beer maker was “grounded on professional business ethics” and understands the importance of “high ethical standards, particularly within a competitive business environment.”

Keroche’s letter to PIC is copied to three other select committees and to the chair of the Monopolies and Prices Commission.

Another copy was sent to Prime Minister Raila Odinga who unveiled Keroche’s beer and three other ministers; Trade, Finance and Industrialisation.