Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua has directed police and chiefs in the Mt. Kenya region to take decisive action and end trade in illicit brews within the next ten days.
Speaking at Kirubia Stadium in Tharaka Nithi County Monday, Gachagua said chiefs and their assistants knew the exact locations where the illicit alcohol was being brewed, while the police station commanders and chief inspectors could easily identify places selling bhang; thus, the decision to end the vice lies squarely with them.
The Deputy President began by requesting the officers to reconcile with their consciences, reminding them that they were also parents and their own children were not immune to consumption of illicit brews and drug abuse.
“Those drugs that you allow to go through the roadblocks, those peddlers that you protect and take their cheap money, may find a way into your own child,” he emphasized.
While blaming some leaders for partly contributing to the menace in the region, Gachagua was emphatic that the selling and consumption of illicit brews as well as drug abuse had become a very serious problem for the current generation.
“We have a problem, a serious one, with illicit alcohol and substance abuse,” he reiterated.
The deputy president promised to look at the online marketing laws of alcohol as well as drugs, and have a meeting with the Internal and National Administration’s CS Prof. Kithure Kindiki on the diversion of ethanol to find a lasting solution to it.
These sentiments were echoed by the Tharaka Nithi Governor Muthomi Njuki, who only recently put in place stringent measures to curb excessive consumption of alcohol in the area.
By David Mutwiri and Milliey Muthoni
