Govt uses booze ban as cop-out

Every day, there are more and more hungry people on our streets. Hungry people are angry people. And, soon, that anger will erupt into violence. Now, with the reimposed ban on the sale and transportation of liquor, there are more than 100 000 about to join the ranks of the unemployed.

The liquor industry has told the government that it will no longer be in a position to pay the excise taxes on its products, which are levied at the point of production. That means even less to spend on the sort of humanitarian programmes to keep hunger, and therefore anger, under control.

There is no doubt that booze is, along with gender-based violence, the biggest societal problem facing South Africa. Our hospital emergency wards fill up with patients admitted with injuries in car accidents, stabbings, rapes and family violence – the vast majority of which includes booze somewhere in the causality chain.

Yet, there are two disturbing realities about the ban, both of which do not reflect well on the people who govern us.

Firstly, the rush to ban booze – and, in effect, toss the Covid-19 blame-ball back in the court of the ordinary citizen of South Africa – is a convenient “cop-out” for the government, because it focuses attention on one reason the hospitals are in danger of being overwhelmed. It therefore diverts the discussion away from how little has actually been done in the time of the lockdown, which the government said was needed to prepare medical facilities for “the surge”.

Secondly, it avoids the deeper systemic problem of almost total absent policing when it comes to alcohol consumption, never mind lack of serious attempts at education about the dangers of booze.

And, we fear, the hungry and angry unemployed could soon be responsible for filling those emergency hospital beds.