ACA admits it is struggling to curb fake alcohol

ACA Chief Executive Director Robi King'a. [Courtesy]

The Anti-Counterfeit Authority of Kenya has admitted that it lacks the capacity to effectively police the proliferation of counterfeit alcoholic drinks in the country amid surging public concerns.

This even as it emerged yesterday that some brands of drinks from East African Breweries Limited (EABL), Kenya Wines Agency Limited (KWAL) and Zheng Hong Kenya Limited were the most susceptible to being counterfeited within the local Kenyan market.  They include vodka and cane products

 Appearing before the Senate’s Information and Communication Technology (ICT) Committee, ACA Chief Executive Director Robi King’a attributed the surge in counterfeit/illicit alcoholic drinks to a wide range of factors but noted that the Authority was grappling with issues such as understaffing, chronic underfunding and the lack of a legal framework mandating the Authority to inspect locally manufactured drinks.

The committee was shocked to learn that the Authority only had a total of 120 members of staff, out of which there were only 38 counterfeit inspectors expected to man the entire country.

“We are having issues with human capacity...we, however, do have a multi-agency framework engagement with institutions such as NACADA, KRA and KEBS and we are currently conducting an operation on illicit and counterfeit alcohol across the country,” said Kingá.

The CEO further explained that recommendations originally drafted by a task force led by former presidential advisor Abdikadir Mohamed in 2013 to merge state agencies had directly caused a freeze on recruitment and promotions at the Anti-Counterfeit Authority. This means that the Authority’s hands are tied and it cannot hire more counterfeit officers.

His submissions, however, elicited sharp questions from the committee, with members seeking to know whether a majority of the illicit or counterfeit drinks were sourced from outside the country or were locally produced.

The House team also sought to know how the public was expected to differentiate between legitimate and counterfeited drinks.

In response, Kingá noted that in the last year alone, counterfeit goods seized by the authority were valued at Sh1.4 billion, of which counterfeit alcoholic drinks accounted for Sh400 million. He explained that 77 per cent of the seized counterfeit alcohol was reported as locally manufactured, 15 per cent was imported, while 8 per cent was of unknown origin.

“The available evidence indicates that the dominant illicit-alcohol volume problem is locally produced rather than imported. Imports remain important for premium products, contraband, counterfeit finished goods, packaging and inputs, but they do not represent the whole or the largest volume of the illicit market,” he submitted.

The CEO also shed light on emerging methods used to defeat authentication measures such as identifier cloning, which includes copying or photographing genuine QR codes and applying them to illicit bottles. He also told of how rogue distributors were using genuine bottles, caps or labels with substituted contents and employed insider and supply-chain diversion, which involves obtaining or diverting authentic packaging, ethanol or identifiers from lawful supply chains.

Other methods include generating false verification pages, shortened links, cloned mobile applications or deceptive messages, and implementing product-identifier mismatch, where the rogue sellers were placing a genuine identifier on a different product, batch or pack size.

They also hide from the authorities by repeatedly using one valid code across multiple bottles or locations or rely on online concealment, which involves selling through social media, closed messaging groups and rapid account switching;

“Unfortunately it is not easy for a common person to identify counterfeited or illicit drinks but as an authority we are doing our best to nab the rogue sellers...the scope that we cover is huge and unless the brand owners complain we are not able to know of the counterfeits,” added Kingá.

To address the issue of counterfeit or illicit drinks, the Authority is now proposing the introduction of an authentication device that should be a digitally verifiable certification mark with a unique identifier linked to a secure ACA-controlled record.

 “For imported goods, the device can be anchored in the existing section 34B recordation process. For locally manufactured alcohol, the current wording of section 34B does not provide an equivalent express framework. Legislative amendment is therefore required before imposing a mandatory nationwide local-product regime,” stated the CEO.

He explained that for locally produced alcohol, reliable traceability should record the manufacturer or authorised bottler, brand and product identifier, batch or lot, packaging event, relevant excise linkage, distribution event, verification history and any recall, seizure or revocation event.

“Because genuine containers may be refilled, the device should combine secure serialisation with tamper-evident packaging and rules against unauthorised reuse. High-risk anomalies, including repeated scans in distant locations, scans before lawful release, invalid batch relationships and high-frequency verification failures, should generate alerts,” added Kingá.