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{
    "id": 106664,
    "url": "https://info.mzalendo.com/api/v0.1/hansard/entries/106664/?format=api",
    "text_counter": 309,
    "type": "speech",
    "speaker_name": "Mr. Nguyai",
    "speaker_title": "The Assistant Minister, Office of the Deputy Prime Minister and Ministry of Local Government",
    "speaker": {
        "id": 113,
        "legal_name": "Lewis Nganga Nguyai",
        "slug": "lewis-nguyai"
    },
    "content": "It is important that we have a minimum of at least, in my opinion, not less than Kshs2.5 million so that people do not risk or take the chance of enriching themselves by selling cheap adulterated alcohol at the expense of the lives of Kenyans. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, if you look at the age of the people who consume alcohol in this country, you will find we have youths as young as nine years old, who buy alcohol on the pretext that they are taking it to an older person. The requirement of proof of age has to be extremely specific. We want to know that it is only people with identity cards who can purchase alcohol from designated outlets which are off licensed. They cannot go to a bar and buy that alcohol so that the off licensed outlets are well monitored and one can know the kind of habits that the owners of the off licenses have. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, the other issue is the selling of alcohol within homes and neighbourhoods. This enables a network of people who can connive to get alcohol to people who are either under-age or should not consume alcohol, like students. It has brought insecurity. I have an example in my constituency. The area of Uthiru does not have a shopping centre but it has so many licensed neighbourhood homes and within those homes you will find that boys drink from 7.00 a.m. to noon. They sleep the whole afternoon and in the evening they wait for people coming from work so that they can get money to consume the next morning. Some of the vices within the society are directly caused by alcohol. For example, in terms of advertising and promotion, we need to start giving serious health warnings that if you drink too much alcohol, it will damage your liver and precipitate other diseases such as high blood pressure and diabetes. We should also warn that if you drink too much alcohol, you cannot make good judgment and in many cases it has been the cause of HIV/AIDS. There should be a warning that if you drink, you need to learn the limits at which you can behave responsibly. You also need to give warnings in terms of drinking and driving. The majority of accidents within this country have been caused by alcohol. You only need to look at the statistics which clearly show 31 Wednesday, 7th April, 2010(A) that the majority of accidents happen on the nights of Friday and Saturday and sometimes on Sunday. If you investigate, you will find that these drivers were affected by alcohol. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, I think one of the items that should be put into this particular Bill is the control of alcohol by ensuring that the alcoblow that has always found its way out of legislation, is properly entrenched into this Bill so that we can have very well defined limits or blood level limits that show the permitted drinking level. One of the areas I think we also need to look into is the other products within the market that have alcohol content and have been used by the youth to intoxicate themselves and harm their health. For example, the sniffing of glue. The sniffing of glue has destroyed young children. These children have destroyed their lives and future and yet it is a product that is sold in hardwares. This law should flex its muscle to ensure that it gets to the hardwares or other areas where any kind of alcohol is sold, so that we can control consumption of alcohol. Mr. Temporary Deputy Speaker, Sir, one area of caution that I would like this Bill to look into is the issue of advertising. I think we have overstretched a little when we talk about the 24- hour media advertising, particularly, on billboards. We might kill industries. I think we have to look at ways we could manage and balance to ensure that advertising and other industries that have supported the economy such as the breweries and advertising agents can continue to thrive and employ our people. We should not kill industries by having an over-kill in terms of the promotion of alcohol. I would also like to say that we are looking forward to the introduction of the Drugs Control Bill, which also covers alcohol. I look forward to when Ms. Amina Abdalla will introduce this particular Bill because I think these two Bills go hand in hand. With those few remarks, I beg to support the Bill."
}