Botswana: Talking Musica : Driving Music And Alcohol Abuse Underground

Botswana: Talking Musica : Driving Music And Alcohol Abuse Underground

Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)

OPINION
14 April 2008
Posted to the web 15 April 2008

Rampholo Molefhe
Gaborone

Many moons ago, I wrote elsewhere about the incongruity of placing the national 'Coat of Arms' on cans of beer produced by Kgalagadi Breweries when Botswana was celebrating 20 years of independence.

There is still something unsettling about the close association of sports and music with alcohol. But it so happens that this country has chosen capitalism as its way of promoting development.

The producers of alcoholic drinks know that they will get their greatest audiences on sporting and music events. Ironically, at the football pitch, and at music rehearsal, we speak day in and day out about the undesirability of performance under the influence of alcohol.

That is, if performance is possible at all, under those conditions. The argument for leaving things as they are in the liquor trade industry therefore should not be misconstrued by the self righteous leaders who keep tonnes of it in their fridges to mean that this column, or any other spokesperson of commerce, seeks to promote excessive consumption of alcohol.

It need only be noted that when fanatics take over government - soldiers, the church and illiterates tend to be prone to fanaticism - the arguments of ill informed village rustics will be exaggerated in order to justify dictatorial behaviour on the part of the governors.

There is not a single soul in this country who favours abuse of alcoholic beverages. There is not a single soul who wants to promote obesity.

But none among the officials is arguing that food stores should be closed in order to curtail abuse of food resulting in obesity, gout, food poisoning, and excessive consumption of cholesterol and the loads of garbage that the Ministry of Health knows is bad for your health.

The lost argument for keeping the old trading hours did not say that when the bars, bottle stores, niteclubs and music festivals open, everyone should be encouraged to booze from the first minute to closing time.

The idea simply is that spreading out the trading hours facilitates exactly what it says, movement of money from buyer to seller over a longer period of time. You don't need music festivals or bottle stores to drink as the Ministry of Trade and the church will soon find out. All you need is an irresponsible government that fails to provide work for its citizens, then they will use the one minute that they get to stock up in legal and illegal trading places so that they can drink their frustrations away for as long as their money lasts.

And should the money finish, they will resort to stealing the stuff. Otherwise they will make 'untested' home brews that will not be subject to opening and closing hours in order to burn their lips and intestines.

This is a simple common sense argument. Widen the trading hours to promote movement of money. Carry out a public education programme sponsored by the very liquor producers and traders to agitate against abuse of alcohol. That is a better bet than promoting alcohol abuse by driving the liquor trade underground where society has been trying to expose it. Look, there are no overheads at the shebeen. Some of the government ministers know that.

The bottle store owners who were complaining that the wholesalers should not sell directly to consumers will abandon that argument and simply rent out houses where they will sell liquor all day and all day night with diminished competition from the 'licensed' traders such as night clubs and promoters of music festivals.

In other words, the reduction in trading hours will not reduce consumption, it will simply shift it elsewhere, most likely to what they call the 'parallel economy' in Zambia and Zimbabwe. Otherwise reduction of trading hours could very well raise levels of consumption.

The parallel economy does not distinguish between child and adult, lecturer and student, man and woman, thief and policeman, girls and boys or any of the other regimentations that 'normal' society creates to keep a semblance of order.

The bottom line is that Botswana is better off with wider liquor trading hours that will save jobs and small investments, whilst maintaining 'above board' recognition of the ills of alcohol, rather than killing the few jobs that the liquor trade keeps, driving the business underground so that we can pretend that alcohol abuse does not exist.