Fight for family flask as hard alcohol floods Kenyan homes

The family flask is the new source of tension between children and their fathers, the little ones wanting it for their porridge and their father for warm water to dilute his hard alcohol.

Flask sales, says Alex, a hawker in Kayole, have never been better, with the proliferating of bedsitter-sized bars in the many working class estates in urban areas.

“On Sundays, my husband is usually indoors, enjoying a drink with friends, and the flask is his then, but I am planning to buy another for the children,” say Martha Mukami of Kawangware in Nairobi.

With the high cost of branded beer, Kenyan drinking habits have changed from ‘give us a round’ to ‘lalisha ingine’, the latter indicating the pocket-friendly spirits whose bottles are often placed horizontally on the table. It only takes a few of these for the drinkers to also lie flat.

Some of the stuff is so hot that it cannot go down without a dash of warm water, hence the need for the flask.

“No flask for warm water means no customers,” says a waiter at Shy Egg Pub in Kayole.

Many Kenyan drinkers still prefer branded beers but the taste for spirits, especially from the informal sector, is growing worryingly.

Health hazard

A recent report by Diageo Africa shows Kenyans drinking more spirits than ever before. The report estimates that the spirits market will grow significantly by 2025, especially in Nairobi.

In its report, Africa Spirits Transformation - Tomorrow’s Markets, Today, Diageo Africa indicates that Kenyans are drinking more non-branded spirits than branded ones.

The unbranded drinks, sometimes called informal alcohol, may be of unknown quality or strength and a health hazard.

According to John Mututho, chairman of the National Authority for the Campaign against Alcohol and Drug Abuse (Nacada), out of 3,300 alcohol brands in the local market, more than 2,000 are of poor quality and have poisonous contents.

Last year, more than 140 people died after consuming adulterated alcohol in Kiambu, Kitui, Embu, Makueni and Murang’a counties, among other areas, with more than 900 people having been hospitalised over the same.

But it is not just parents who are into spirits. While launching East African Breweries Limited’s new campaign against underage drinking, dubbed ‘Under 18 Asipewe’ a fortnight ago, it emerged that the under 18s consume more spirits than beer. The launch heard that most children are introduced to alcohol by relatives, including parents.

Soyinka Witness, a consultant from Synovate, said close to 15 per cent of children drinkers admitted to sneaking the first gulp of alcohol at home. This may be an indication that children may be sharing the flask with their fathers for more than just porridge.

A combination of government policies, including high alcohol taxation and the ‘Mututho laws’, may be unintentionally pushing Kenyans towards a poorly regulated spirits market.

Although credited to John Mututho, the Alcohol Control Bill 2010 was pushed by the World Health Organisation through its global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol.

The strategy suggests high taxation on alcohol to make it less accessible, restriction of sales below cost and other price promotions.

But such restriction, argues Prof Jürgen Rehman, an expert on alcohol and health from the University of Toronto, Canada, could have serious though unintended effects as is happening in Kenya.

In a poorly regulated market, he says, this could lead to the emergence of unrecorded products outside the formal market leading to an increase of overall consumption and to heavier drinking.