Africa's fermenting problem

In the half-light of the Grogon drinking den closed curtains can't hide the fact that morning has broken.

Slumped in the corner, Alfred and Michael have joined the early shift of drinkers. In voices slowed to a slur they offer a lesson in the economics of illicit alcohol consumption.

"A Guinness is 120 shillings," says Alfred, his bloodshot eyes wide. "A half glass of kumi-kumi is 10 shillings," he declares. "And it's 40 per cent," Michael adds approvingly.

Their point made, both men take a long swig of the illegally brewed kumi-kumi, or chang'aa - the name literally means "kill me quick".

The clear liquor announces itself with a fierce burn and leaves an aftertaste of soil. Across the room, eyes are red and expressions vacant. One man has already passed out.

Outside, the temperature is rising and the breeze carries a stench of decomposing rubbish over Korogocho, one of Nairobi's poorest and roughest slums. Perched on the edge of Kenya's largest landfill dump, the slum is home to 120,000 people and hundreds of the illicit stills that fuel the lucrative and sometimes deadly trade in chang'aa.

Down by the river, a breezeblock outhouse is used as a clandestine store for one of the larger batches. A mix of fecal water, rats and cockroaches spiked with formaldehyde from a nearby mortuary - it's known to locals as "Hustle". Another brew, "Jet 5", takes its name from its magic ingredient: stolen jet fuel.

Kenya is not alone in its habits. The World Health Organisation believes that more than half of the alcohol consumed in sub-Saharan Africa is illegal.

In Nigeria, the local specials include palm wines such as "crazy man in the bottle", in Botswana there is fermented tho-tho-tho (the dizzy spell), in Zimbabwe the nightcap is "Scud" and in DR Congo there's the plaintive kasiki (I regret).

For the most part, this underground flow remains hidden from view until a particularly lethal batch makes the headlines. Last month 80 people died in Western Uganda after drinking banana gin, called waragi, which had been cut with industrial alcohol. Those who died first went blind before suffering from massive liver and kidney failure.

The public health threat has prompted some governments to rethink the prohibition of traditional liquor and listen to the big brewers who have been arguing for tax breaks to allow them to offer cheap, safe, commercial alternatives.

In Kenya a private members' bill that legalises chang'aa production is at the committee stage, having passed its first reading.

Dr Justin Willis, a history professor at Durham University and the author of several works on alcohol in East Africa, warns that there is no "silver bullet" that will make the problem go away.

"To drive out the illegal market the legal alcohol will have to be very, very cheap," he says. "Providing very large amounts of cheap alcohol will create its own problems."

Botswana has swung the other way under President Ian Khama. Determined to stamp out what he calls an epidemic of alcoholism, which he links to lower productivity and high HIV/Aids rates, he has championed huge tax hikes on booze. But the big brewing interests have become a mainstay of post-colonial economies in many African countries and Botswana is the exception.

Since independence, colonial prohibition of traditional alcoholic drinks has largely been left in place or "sin taxes" have been used to curb consumption. But the lobby arguing that legalisation can improve public health is gaining ground.

Repealing the chang'aa ban has also found strong support in the National Agency for the Campaign Against Drug Abuse (NACADA).

"If the ban on chang'aa is left to continue, people will continue to die because no one knows exactly what the chang'aa they are drinking is made of," said NACADA's head Jennifer Kimani.

None of these arguments persuade Raymond Waneru Maina. He runs alcoholics anonymous meetings in Korogocho. A third of households in the slum, where the average age is under 25, suffer from alcoholism, he says.

"The issue is not the contents but the effect of this liquor ... more jobs lost, more families broken and more people dying." A poster on his office door warns: "We drank to cope with life and invited death; We drank for freedom and became slaves."

Dr Willis believes the weakness of the state in East Africa, where police share illegal profits with producers, means the illicit industry won't disappear with a change in the law.

- INDEPENDENT