Make Chang’aa Legal and Safe, Siaya Chief Tells Murkomen

A Siaya assistant chief has asked the government to review its policy on prohibition of chan’gaa as an illicit brew and instead introduce regulations that would allow its safe production and consumption.      

Nicholas Mudaho, the assistant chief for Maliera sub-location in Gem subcounty, said that despite the government’s punitive penal approach of curbing the production and sale of the illicit brew, 60 per cent of liquor in the country still remains illicit.

Despite their best efforts to eliminate the drink as administrators in the region, Siaya county still is the leading producer of chang’aa in the country at 69 per cent.

Mudaho revealed that together with other seven administrators currently undertaking a master’s degree course in policy and development studies, they have shared their proposal with Gem deputy county commissioner to have the government review its policy on prohibiting the illicit brew.   

Speaking during the Jukwaa la Usalama event chaired by the Cabinet Secretary of Interior and National Coordination Kipchumba Murkomen, Mudaho asked the CS to push for policy reforms that would legalise chan’gaa.

“Sir, I am not a partaker of chang’aa but I would ask for a change in policy so that we find other ways of dealing with chang’aa addicts other than the penal way of arraigning them,” Mudaho said.

He said that just like busaa, a local brew regulated by the county government, chang’aa could be distilled, packaged and sold under the Kenya Bureau Standards regulations to economically benefit the people of Siaya county and the country at large.

Mudaho stated that there is nothing illegal about the components of chang’aa which include maize floor, sorghum and sugar apart from its prohibited production that the government could provide resources and regulations to streamline.

He observed that his own grandfather working as an assistant chief in 1968 arrested people for chang’aa and almost 60 years down the line, he is still doing the same as he now serves as an administrator, indicating the unending war against the illicit brew.

The administrator said that former Nacada boss John Mututho had initiated the move to legalise chang’aa and asked the CS to follow through.

His remarks were met by loud ululation by chiefs, assistant chiefs and county officials who attended the event, perhaps an indication of shared sentiment.

CS Murkomen had asked grassroots administrators to give their honest opinion on how challenges of insecurity which include illicit brew could be addressed and assured them of immunity on their shared sentiments.