Alcoholic drinks to face Nacada audit

What you need to know:

Some of the issues health officers will be looking for include alcohol percentage, poisons and heavy metals. Mr Mututho assured that the process would be open and transparent, and anyone who wants to contest results can have the test redone.

The National Authority for Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (Nacada) has directed all liquor manufacturers to submit samples of their products to the Ministry of Health for audit.

Nacada chairman John Mututho said the samples would be submitted to the chief public health officer in the Ministry of Health for testing and analysis.

The process could see 85 per cent of liquor brands in the market withdrawn after the audit is completed.

“We could lose 85 per cent of what is in the market. The audit will enable us to remain with safe alcohol that is fit for consumption,” he told the Sunday Nation.

Mr Mututho said Nacada had collected samples from brewers and is giving them a chance to prove that their liquor is safe before the institution kicks out unscrupulous ones.

“The consumption of unfit alcoholic drinks has caused negative effects on the health and social economic well-being of Kenyans,” Nacada said in a directive placed in newspapers last week.

Mr Mututho said previous testing of alcoholic drinks by Nacada with the help of the Kenya Revenue Authority, the Kenya Bureau of Standards (Kebs), Public Health and the Kenya Police – who are all participating in the current project – had found over 80 per cent of liquor in the country cannot pass the quality test.

“We have already finished sampling,” he said. “We now want them to take the samples to the Ministry of Health. There is a way of catching a thief legally.”
The products will be tested to meet Kebs and World Health Organisation standards.

Poisons and heavy metals

Some of the issues health officers will be looking for include alcohol percentage, poisons and heavy metals. Mr Mututho assured that the process would be open and transparent, and anyone who wants to contest results can have the test redone.

Samples should be submitted by 5pm on April 15, while testing and analysis would be completed by the end of May.

Mr Mututho said that once tests are done, Nacada will notify the public from June which brands of liquor are fit for human consumption and which are not. The latter would be withdrawn from the market.
“This would be subject to Section 38 of Mututho Laws,” the Nacada chairman said.

The section stipulates that any person who sells adulterated alcoholic drinks commits an offence and shall be liable to a fine not exceeding Sh5 million, or imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or both. The person’s licence might also be forfeited, and no permit shall thereafter be granted or transferred to the offender.

According to Nacada statistics, there are about 540 alcoholic drinks in the market but only 10 per cent are known. Mr Mututho said 7,100 alcohol-related deaths occurred last year, up from 6,557 deaths in 2012.

He warned alcohol manufacturers who don’t take samples to health officers of dire consequences.
The managing trustee of Responsible Alcohol Drinks Company Association (Radca) Ken Kariuki said the organisation supports Nacada’s initiatives, which he noted would sanitise the alcohol market.
“The time is ripe for government to intervene and regularise quality,” Mr Kariuki said. “It is our hope that testing these brands will ensure traceability and, therefore, better production of quality alcohol.”

Mr Kariuki said that Radca’s members, Keroche Breweries, SABmiller, Pernod Ricard, Ozzbeco, Heineken, Bacardi-Martini and East African Breweries Limited, abide by a code of conduct and pride themselves in being makers of quality products.

Nacada has seized dozens of illegal alcoholic drinks during raids in different establishments across the country. Kenyans are among the largest consumers of alcohol in East Africa, a reason why many illicit brews thrive as people seek cheap liquor. High consumption of illicit brew has been attributed to rise in prices of unadulterated alcohol due to taxes.