Budget drinking: alcohol consumption in two Kenyan towns

Abstract

The production and consumption of informal sector alcohol continues to excite much popular debate in Kenya. This paper, based on limited survey work and extensive observation, explores two of the facets of this phenomenon: palm wine in Mombasa and chang'aa – illicitly distilled spirits – in Naivasha. It discusses the patterns of sociability associated with these beverages, and suggests that these may distinguish them from one another, and from formal-sector beverages. An effective decriminalization has allowed the trade in palm wine to grow in size, but seems not to have led to any significant developments in scale or technology, and most of those involved in the trade derive very limited income from it. While the production and sale of chang'aa remains illegal, so that both traders and drinkers are vulnerable to police action and fines or demands for bribes, some of those involved in this trade seem to have accumulated a modest degree of wealth. The study provided no definitive evidence on consumption levels, though it would seem that palm wine consumption has probably increased in recent years on the coast, and that in Naivasha “new generation” drinks (mostly, flavoured spirit-based beverages marketed in the formal sector) now account for a very significant part of overall alcohol consumption. While there have been some public calls for the “legalization” (in itself a problematic term) of informal sector beverages, the paper suggests that while there are arguments for this, it is not in itself likely to solve the problems which may be associated with alcohol consumption.

Keywords:

• alcohol
• Kenya
• informal economy

Notes

1. Nacada, Youth in Peril.

2. See for example “Outcry on Tobacco and Alcohol Ads,” Daily Nation, January 7, 2005.

3. Nelson, “How Women and Men Got By and Still Get By”; Rodriguez-Torres, De l'informel à l'illégal.

4. Editorial, Daily Nation, May 16, 2002; Letter, “Did the Castle Brewing Plant Have to Close Down,” Daily Nation, May 29, 2002.

5. Partanen, Sociability and Intoxication. One estimate by Kenya Breweries in the early 1990s put the figure even higher, at around 80%; see Willis, Potent Brews, 259; the 60% figure is used, for example, in a video by EABL on the dangers of illicit drinking: “Illicit Brews vs a Working Nation” (2004).

6. Green, “Trading on Inequality”; Nelson, “Women Must Help Each Other”; Saul, “Beer, Sorghum and Women”; Willis, Enkurma sikitoi. Two of the papers in Bryceson (ed.), Alcohol in Africa address this issue: Willis, “For Women and Children”; Tanzarn, “Liquid Gold of a Lost Kingdom.”

7. For a colourful account of Naivasha's social problems (though not mentioning alcohol) see “Naivasha Town Bursting at the Seams with Street Families,” Daily Nation, January 18, 2008.

8. The research assistants were Victoria Avoga, Rachel Hicks, Victor Keng'chiri, Polly Nyadzua, Richard Wabwile, and Philip Wangila.

9. Willis, Potent Brews, 255–8.

10. Parkin, Palms, Wine and Witnesses; Herlehy, “Ties that Bind”; Willis, “Soured Wine.”

11. Kenya National Assembly Debates, Eighth Parliament, Second Session, October 7 and 14, 1998, 1104–5 and 1720.

12. “Narc to Legalize Mnazi, Says Maitha,” East African Standard, November 7, 2002; “Stop Listening to Maitha on Palm Wine, Court Warns,” Daily Nation, May 1, 2003.

13. Records were not available for all months, and of course they only record incidences which resulted in prosecution. But the figures are striking. In August/September 2003, before the end of restrictions on palm wine, offences under the Chang'aa Act accounted for 8% of petty crime prosecutions recorded at Nyali police station; in January/February 2005, this had dropped to 2%; in January/February 2006 it was 3%. At Bamburi police station, offences under the Chang'aa Act were 3% of all petty crime prosecutions in January/February 2003; this dropped to 0.7% by January/February 2006.

14. Pietila, “Drinking Mothers, Feeding Children.”

15. For the suggestion of booming trade, see “Palm Wine Prices Shoot up Due to Heavy Rain,” Daily Nation, May 16, 2006.

16. Partanen, Sociability and Intoxication, 112.

17. From June to August 2006, 89 of the 390 prosecutions for petty crimes in Naivasha were for offences under the Chang'aa Act; in May–June 2007, only 12 of a total of 275 prosecutions were made under this Act. Curiously, while the vast majority of chang'aa sellers whom we met were women, the majority of prosecutions are against men (out of 178 prosecutions in nine months, 118 were of men and 60 of women).

18. Akyeampong, “Drinking with Friends.”

19. For a more detailed discussion of this phenomenon, see Willis, “New Generation Drinking.”

20. “More Taxation Leaves Keroche in Low Spirits,” Daily Nation, October 23, 2007.

21. “Cheaper but Safer Drinks in the Wake of ‘Kumi Kumi’,” Sunday Nation, July 10, 2005.

22. The 1978 results – which estimated 80% of consumption as “informal” – were made in Nout, “Aspects of the Manufacture and Consumption of Kenyan Traditional Fermented Beverages.” See the summary in WHO, Global Status Report on Alcohol, 81; for the 1990s, see Willis, Potent Brews, 259.

23. “‘Mnazi’ Wasting Our Men, Coast MPs Say,” East African Standard, March 30, 2004.

24. “Legalise Local Liquors, Urges Anti-drugs Boss,” Daily Nation, September 28, 2005.

25. “Whiling Time Away with Mnazi,” The Standard, October 16, 2005.

26. Bryceson, “Pleasure and Pain,” 271.

27. The estimates shown in the appendix suggest a total consumption in Naivasha of 183,000 litres of absolute alcohol. The 2001 census put the population of Naivasha town at 38,000; administrators estimate the current population at around 42,000, of whom around half will be over 18 years old. That would give an approximate figure of 9 litres of absolute alcohol per capita of the adult population. In 2004 the World Health Organization estimated annual consumption in Kenya as 6.74 litres of absolute alcohol per capita of adult population (being 1.74 litres of “recorded” and 5 litres “unrecorded”): WHO, Global Status Report on Alcohol, 11, 15.

28. Editorial, Daily Nation, June 26, 2005; “Compelling Case Made to Legalize Traditional Brews,” Daily Nation, October 12, 2005.

29. Willis,”Clean Spirit.”

30. “Coast Leaders Want Mnazi Drink to be Legalized,” East African Standard, June 16, 2003.

31. Kibua and Muthama, Illicit Spirits.