By Umaru Fofana
They are all over the country. Stocked on almost all shelves and stalls in all shops and all bars. Swimming and perhaps drowning in them are mostly men. Hardly, one gets the impression, does anybody or any institution stringently regulate their entry into the country or their sales. Never mind their consumption.
Their names range from the bizarre to the ridiculous: from BATTERY to PUSSY, from PARROT to STING and XXX, the so-called energy drinks are ubiquitous. Consumed especially by men, for reasons that are not only not scientifically proven but are ludicrous if not unconscious. Some do under the false pretext and misleading advertisement that it is an effective aphrodisiac.
Others ...well..."it makes me stay up late and active". How suicidal! I can only say that I have seen someone fall asleep with an empty Energy Drink can in his hand and another feeling feeble despite having drunk a few cans of it.
In the last couple of months I have lost to the cold hands of death through organ failure seven Sierra Leoneans I knew up close and personal. Some of them shockingly. In a country where autopsy is hardly carried out if not for crime-related deaths, two had a post mortem done on them, for some reason.
Both had in their system a huge concentration of some substance most common in some energy drink of some sort. I cannot name the energy drink in question for reasons of litigation, added to the fact that the families of the deceased do not wish it to be made known.
These autopsy results beg the question as to how these drinks get into our country and to our markets, what quality control - if any - they are required to pass through, and how much education, if at all, people get about their consumption. These drinks - at least some of them - may just have been destroying in many of us such vital organs like our liver and kidney and even our heart, unsuspectingly, simply because our food and beverage chains do not seem to work or be working properly while those in charge cannot care less.
Broadly, this issue speaks to the issue of our drink culture. Poyo (palm wine) or what is known in Kono as Ba'aneh may be against some faiths - such as mine - but if well handled it can hardly cause any health hazard to its drinker, I am told by people who should know. Even if the uncontrolled and unrestrained drinking of it is ill-advised. The consumption in Sierra Leone of alcohol, or even much harder liquor, is on the rise. We do have binge drinkers in the country even if no one or authority is admitting to it, talking about it or even acting on it. In fact it is not an issue on the government's list of priorities despite it being an incontrovertible fact of life in present day Sierra Leone especially with some form of an expansion in the middle class as a result of mining activities. Its attendant ramifications are glossed over at best while
In a country where statistics hardly exist, using anecdotal evidence one is led to believe that alcohol intake surpasses that of water. Why not, when a 10-year-old can walk up to a bartender and buy any alcohol, or go to any shop and buy cans of the so-called Energy Drink whose consumption is seriously competing in Sierra Leone with traditional soft drinks.
The Standards Bureau is supposed to be in charge of all goods coming into the country, to ensure they meet set-out standards or criteria and pass what should, ideally, be rigorous quality test and control. These include alcohol content and Energy Drinks. The police and customs officials are supposed to be at our border crossing points to ensure goods follow the right conduit and traders do the right thing. Not only should attention be focused on the customs levies, the suitability and edibility and drinkability of food and drink must also be of equal priority and importance. Dead people do not pay tax nor do they enjoy services provided with tax money.
After all tax evasion is, or should be, as much criminal as selling goods that are life-threatening such as some of these uncontrolled Energy Drinks and liquor . It is amazing the different types of Energy Drink that are in towns close to our borders. The other day I saw them in Kailahun in all shapes, sizes and names. Not long ago when I was last in Kambia I saw a mushroom of them there too. The same situation I saw in Pujehun during a visit there last week. These are all districts bordering our neighbours - Guinea and Liberia, which tells us a lot about the porous nature of these our borders. And some of these drinks have found their way into Freetown and other towns and cities across the country largely because of their cheapness. The question is HOW DID THEY GET INTO THE COUNTRY?
Punjab Distilleries, an Indian-owned and -run alcohol production company based in the eastern district headquarter town of Kenema was said to have wreaked havoc on the livers and kidneys of Liberians. Next moment it was in Sierra Leone and has been turning the current generation into a generation of sots making them behave violently and apparently destroying their livers with cheap alcohol. What's more, according to a parliamentary committee that visited their facilities in Kenema last year, their premises are filthy and in an intolerably awful state. And even a senior government official, paid by the state to work for the people, was busy working with Punjab Distilleries. A great job that parliament spotted him, but without any consequence for the distillery or even the state official who should be checkmating the company and its activities. He, like the liquor brewers, has not been punished.
The Ministry of Health and Sanitation should seriously consider intervening in these areas through the strengthening of ties with the Standards Bureau, which, the last time I visited its headquarters in eastern Freetown, was grappling with the lack of something as basic as a proper, functional laboratory to test foods and drinks coming into the country. Add to that the callousness of some of our police officers and custom officials who turn a blind eye to such unregulated drinks and allow them to enter the country if only for some backhanders. Without stringent measures and the right things done, the number of widows emanating from uncertified drinks entering the country, will continue to increase. That is not ignoring the fact that bachelors are also at risk.
(C) Politico 11/02/14
