By Staff Reporter
Garry Nkombo must go and apologise to the woman and her children he forced to drink kachasu, says leader of the opposition in parliament Brian Mundubile.
Speaking with Daily Revelation on the video which has gone viral of Local Government minister Nkombo telling the woman he found brewing kachasu to drink it, and some of it also to her children, Mundubile, who is Mporokoso member of parliament, said the PF members will be making a statement right from where the incident happened.
“When we are governing, when we are presiding over the affairs of the nation, we must be very prudent in the way that we do things. And not being mechanical. If you look at the activity of brewing that same kachasu, what’s the reason? Why are people doing that? People are doing that as a means of survival and before we provide alternatives we must approach those matters with caution. We should not be mechanical,” Mundubile said. “This alcohol may not be very different from other forms of alcohol and I think that basing local standards using international standards may not be the fairest of things to do.”
Mundubile described the action by Nkombo as excessive, particularly the act of forcing young children to consume “what he himself as minister said is intoxicating or a dangerous liquid.”
“You can’t force it on innocent children. If at all the mother was wrong the question is were her children also wrong? The action was too rough on the lady,” Mundubile said. “We want to call upon the minister to get back to that family and apologise for his action, especially to the children because those are innocent children. The children were not in anyway part of the offence committed.”
But asked if those in the PF supported the brewing of kachasu, Mundubile said there was a better way of managing things.
“I think that as a council first of all they needed to understand that these people are in these activities for survival. So if at all what causes that particular drink illegal is maybe the standard that is being used, we want the government to relook at those standards and maybe guide those people on how they can brew proper kachasu,” Mundubile said. “This is a drink that has been consumed from time immemorial. So we must review some of these laws, some of these policies as opposed to mechanically punishing these people. Can we get the local government to understand and advice these people how it takes to safely brew their drink and maybe from time to time check that the drink is safe to be consumed. Because that kachasu is selling because there is a class of citizens that drink it, and there is a class of citizens that can only afford that.
“There may be some modern kachasu in the name of tujilijili, we interrogate the law, is it because this particular drink is not packaged in the form of tujilijili that we say it is illegal? What is different between the content in tujilijili and the content in kachasu? So my point is let us not be mechanical, let’s work to try and help our citizens.”
Mundubile said kachasu can continue to be brewed safely so that the economic activity continues, while considering the safety on the part of consumers at the same time.
“We have no jobs to give to these women. If somebody with means, somebody of Asian origin with much higher capital levels is brewing tujilijili and tujilijili is legal, because you would be interested to know that the chemical formula for these two drinks is just the same. But maybe one is managed because certain properties are suppressed meaning the people brewing kachasu can be advised to brew it in a manner that conforms,” said Mundubile.
