Traditional brewers vent their spleen over spilt beer

DIRANG LEKUNTWANE
Correspondent | Thursday August 2, 2012 00:00

 

So serious is the matter that Kgosi Obusitse Kebaeditse of Moloko Ward has had to call a Kgotla meeting for the brewers to vent their spleen because, as he put it, 'I am not abused by the allegations.'

The brewers say regular police officers and volunteers disregard their constitutional rights to live in peace by terrorising them with threats of arrest and detention.

A particularly vindictive special constable was singled out for egging police volunteers on in their alleged harassment of the traditional brewers.

Mmegi has the name of the special constable who has become notorious for harassing brewers, particularly in Moloko, Mokubatse and Xhosa 1.

Her modus operandi allegedly involves calling her superiors on the phone with false and exaggerated accounts of what is on the ground in order to attract instructions to get tough with the brewers.

At the special Kgotla meeting in Moloko on Monday, the brewers complained that the police and police volunteers often spilled their beer.

Kgosi Kebaeditse said the allegations against the police and police volunteers were not amusing and appealed to both parties to resolve their differences.

''I am really concerned about what I understand is currently taking place in my ward,' he said. 'What is happening to traditional brewers is not good.

'When I heard you were treated in this manner, I consulted with my superior, Kgosi Segotsi, who was in the dark regarding traditional beer regulations. But I urge you to work as partners, not enemies.' 

Some local brewers indicated that recently some of their brewed traditional beer was either destroyed or confiscated because they did not have the proper licences.

One woman, known only as Mmaziki, said the police recently raided her old mother who has been brewing 'khadi' since her childhood.

She explained that the police raided their house and confiscated her bucket full of 'khadi' as they threatened to imprison her mother if she failed to pay the fee for operating without a licence, which was to be offered by the by-law officers.

'My mother was threatened by both the police and the cluster volunteers and her brewed 'khadi' confiscated because she had no licence. She was told to pay P250 to clear her name otherwise she would be prosecuted. We were forced to look for the money to pay for her release.

However, when we questioned about the brewed 'khadi', we were told that the beer was an illegal one because it was mixed with brandy. But we tried in vain to be shown the laboratory results as we were taken pillar to post,' she said to the shocked audience.

'The funny thing is from the receipt we paid for, it shows that my mother was charged for selling khadi without a licence, not that she sold illegally brewed beer. So what was the point of confiscating her brew and failing to give it back to her, because as far as I am concerned there was no case,' she added, as she passed the receipt to the audience.

This testimony it appeared triggered the emotions of the audience that mostly involved old women of Moloko ward, an area that the police regularly patrol because of the presence of hardcore and petty criminals who used to spend most of their times in shebeens until the recently introduced alcohol laws that have seen Chibuku only sold in registered depots and with operational licences.

After three hours of highly charged debates, the meeting was adjourned to next week.