Give people vaccines; stop hiding behind alcohol

Kgosietsile Ngakaagae | Friday July 2, 2021 10:16

Ask me if I really care about the alcohol suspension, and my answer would be an equivocal, “Yes” and “No”. Look, alcohol will continue to be available in the black market, for those who consume it.

It would just be more expensive. As it is, bootleggers are readying themselves for a lucrative local and cross border trade. The good times are back. They will continue to funnel it into the streets at astronomical prices, as has always been the case. Those who cannot afford it, will turn to homebrews.

We are told that government is angry because some bar, allowed drunkards to drink on its grounds. I have seen the pictures and must agree that what I saw was reprehensible. But this would have been a very simple matter to deal with.

The drunkards took advantage of a loophole within the law. Somehow, you are not supposed to drink inside the bar, but there has been no provision banning drinking in the environs. I doubt that the police would be able to hold the bar owner down.

I doubt also, that the bar owner would have had the capacity to disperse the crowds, short of simply reporting the matter to the police. It would have been easier, simply to prescribe that; “no person shall drink in public, within a 100-metre radius of a liquor selling outlet”. What is difficult, about simply saying that?

And again, there is another way, and it’s a law enforcement way. When people are gathered at a bar drinking, or at any other place for that matter, the Special Service Group (SSG) are supposed to show up with water cannons, and flush them away, no questions asked.

No need for whips. Just plain, good rainwater from Gaborone Dam. It’s winter, anyway. One SSG water truck, can police this city, with no difficult whatsoever. No, guns. And there is extra capacity from the Gaborone City Council fire brigade.

As it is, the industry has been practically shut down again, just as it was recovering from a government-induced coma. Jobs are being lost again, loans are going unpaid, livelihoods are being ruined, and children will be going hungry, with no government social support programme. In protest, employers will be laying more people off work to mark their disapproval against government’s arbitrary conduct.

After all, what does a person in Maun has to do with the said bar? Meanwhile, the decision makers will be safe, and enjoying the most profitable time of their careers, safe from their own decisions.

That is the injustice of it all. Forget the empty regrets that characteristically preface the television speeches, it is out of a lack of empathy both to the industry and to those who eke a living from it, that these decisions are made. The decision makers are distant to the miseries of the affected, because their jobs and livelihoods are safe.

But then, we know it is just the way it is; government must hide the fact that it is responsible for the more than 1,000 deaths that have so far happened. Government must blame it all on someone. Alcohol is that stepchild in the economy blamed for every theft in the house. Instead of engaging stakeholders on how the situation can be best addressed, the government plays the blame card, yet again.

The matter allows no factual complexity. It is that simple. Alcohol is not responsible for COVID deaths even if irresponsible use of the same may encourage its spread. Government’s near inexistent vaccination programme is responsible for the deaths, not Pennywise Bar. Government must know this. After all, we have the most itinerate President, at a time of a supposed public health emergency. 

Three months from now, we would have hit 18 months of government under a state of emergency (SOE) with hardly any positive results to show. To our credit will be a depleted fiscus, and smiling COVID PPE tenderpreneurs, high unemployment rates, and a despondent youth in the entertainment sector.

Our health system has fought with extreme bravado, not on account of any newly built capacity, attributable to the SOE, but out of its innate strength. It is the very same strength the poor nurses and doctors, fought HIV with. North of a thousand people lie in their graves, and the figures are mounting. I fully comprehend the enormity of the problem.

But countries around the world are on overdrive to vaccinate their populations. Our leaders are simply either officially opening pit latrines, closing liquor outlets. Somebody needs to tell our government that the masses don’t need cabbages; they need vaccines. They don’t need alcohol suspensions; they need vaccines. They don’t need press conferences about Mozambique; they need press conferences about milestones in the imaginary vaccine effort.

I repeat question of drinking crowds is a law enforcement issue. Accepting that it is also a regulation effort, I maintain there were other options for achieving the false objective. It is no matter over which, peoples lives must be disrupted.

The suspension is an emotive reaction not based on any reason, but simply intended to face save political non-delivery. Let people get back to their jobs, and continue with their lives. Give people vaccines, and stop hiding behind alcohol.