By Isaac Massaquoi
We have to admit that Sierra Leone is facing a very serious problem with cheap and dangerous alcohol that is now freely available to anybody who cares. This is not only a Freetown problem. In fact it's more pronounced in remote and viciously poor communities in rural Sierra Leone.
Please don't believe what I am saying, please find out for yourself the huge number of alcohol brands sold in small sachets, deliberately packaged to meet the purchasing power of the rural poor. Whether it's "Officer" or "Black Horse" rum, there's just too much alcohol around.
I may be totally wrong but I believe some of these so-called distilleries are unknown to the Standards Bureau and even those the Bureau knows about are not being constantly and properly monitored. In fact whatever monitoring is being done has been so corrupted that it would be correct to argue that the alcohol producers are on their own - free to produce and sell whatever they want.
We are living in a country where the only thing that wakes up authorities are large scale disasters, like landslides that kill many people, or incidents like the collapse of the King Jimmy bridge or indeed when somebody in the opposition makes a critical comment about the state of affairs in the country.
In the former case, politicians will flock to the place with their ever-loyal TV crew in tow to try and milk whatever political milestone they can make out of a situation like that. In the latter case, State House might even issue a statement accusing the opposition politician of "incitement". Sometimes this gets too patronising. So just because Tamba Sam goes on radio and tells the people to rise against the Third Term nonsense, people will run to the streets and fight the government?
We know that political repression in the Arab world including North Africa directly caused the so-called Arab Spring. But it took the action of just one frustrated trader to spark the fire for this unprecedented display of people power, they didn't need the equivalent of a Musa Tamba Sam to get them going.
So it looks as if for as long as massive consumption of cheap alcohol does not kill people in large numbers at a go - but it keeps them drunk and illiterate to the extent they are not able to hold the government accountable - they can as well get on with it. But the implication for the health of this nation's young people is huge. We may end up becoming a nation of drunkards. If that's too extreme, please forgive me.
I will never forget the day I came face to face with this new love for cheap alcohol and its consequences. I had travelled with about 20 other journalists to a small village near Bo for the funeral of a former colleague who had died suddenly. He was a very intelligent man, very committed to his friends and the development of journalism. The 52-year-old man's death was a real shock to the professional community.
We arrived at the village before 10 o'clock in the morning expecting to find the village of about 25 houses in mourning. But we were disappointed. We found the people in what I will describe as a merry mood induced by cheap alcohol. Yes there were the odd women in some corner weeping. Obviously they were very close relatives of the late man. But the rest of the people including the priest, appeared to have continued their merry making from the night before. So here we were to bury a 52-year-old man but more than half the village that had lost a great son was in merry mood. We hung in there, praying for the end of the funeral so we could leave the place.
The grave was dug in the middle of the village but it was a poor job. It was shallow and parts of it had to be chiselled again as the coffin was being lowered by men under the influence. Under such conditions, even the strongest of persons would have broken down. I left the village thinking: if only our hosts had pushed alcohol to the corner for just one day. Well, just so that their visitors didn't leave with the kind of impression we talked about throughout the journey back to Freetown.
Ok, that was more than a year ago. Just last week I was driving home from work when I was stopped by a young man, probably about 22 years old, who wanted a ride to George Brook junction. I obliged because the cloud had gathered and he looked helpless under the deluge that was threatening. The guy was very drunk. He noticed that I was somehow uncomfortable with his condition so he quickly pleaded with me to bear with him because, according to him, he had only taken a few sachets of alcohol to "chill" after work. I cannot remember the brand he mentioned. I had no choice any way. By the time the journey ended ten minutes later, it was as if I was also drunk. With a faulty vehicle air-conditioner and rain now falling in slanting showers, the next 15 minutes home was real hell for me.
I will not take issue with his reason for drinking so much alcohol because it's not much use doing that, but the point I want to make is that there is now a large group of people who are hooked on alcohol and we shouldn't pretend as if we don't know. Clearly the Standards Bureau is unable to monitor the quality of such low grade productions that are available to everyone, everywhere. I know that there are regulations on who can buy and sell alcohol, where, when and to whom. But like everything else, we have made those regulations so redundant that it is those who want to operate outside the scope of the law that are having a field day.
I have no idea whether the liquor licensing board exists any more. Many years ago they would meet at one of the courtrooms in Freetown to issue licenses. It was serious business because it wasn't a free-for-all affair. Today, that body, if it still exists, is as bound and powerless as Gulliver in Lilliput. Alcohol is sold throughout the day in every little corner by mostly unlicensed people and they have no age restrictions as to who can buy which brand and in what quantity. Typical Sierra Leonean care-free attitude. We have allowed institutions and structures to collapse and die instead of making them powerful in the wider interest of all the people of Sierra Leone.
Apart from Eastern Radio in Kenema and religious radio stations, I don't know of any other radio stations that have a policy of not advertising alcohol and tobacco. Money is the game. I understand their action only to the extent that they have to survive but money is not all that it takes to survive.
Much of the alcohol advertising in Sierra Leone is totally against the IMC Code of Practice. They make absolutely false medical claims. For example, one of them says, a sachet of KOSOMBO (one of the brand names) will make one a strong man. Nothing can be farther from the truth but radio stations still accept money for those kinds of advertising.
The government cannot take itself out of this. In other countries governments have taken actions to restrict the sale of alcohol to certain groups of people, like children. Even adults can't expect to wake up at midnight and buy alcohol from every corner. Why should Sierra Leone be different?
Still other governments have increased taxes on alcohol and cigarette to discourage their people from getting hooked. We seem reluctant to be so particular. Some of the countries I am referring to are the most developed. Our politicians go there all the time to get a good life. And that good life was achieved because those people put systems in place, they took partisan politics out of their institutions, they nurtured and protected those institutions even when they disagreed with their actions.
Here, if the Standards Bureau for example stood up to those cheap illegal alcohol producers, and there was a big hand behind the business people as is most likely to be, they would be described as an institution challenging the authority of the president. They might even have a coffee meeting at State House after which they would go into oblivion. We are all Sierra Leoneans. We know this country too well.
(C) Politico 15/05/14
