MPs seek to regulate alcohol consumption

Parliament yesterday allowed Tororo District Woman MP Sarah Opendi to introduce a private member’s Bill that seeks to regulate the manufacture, importation, sale and consumption of alcohol in the country.

Parliament also formally accorded the Bukoto West County legislator, Mr Muhamad Ssentayi, leave to process the Consumer Protection and Management Bill, 2022, which seeks to shield consumers from exploitation.

The Alcohol Control Bill, 2022, seeks to have all persons trading in alcoholic drinks and premises where alcoholic drinks are sold licensed.

Importers and industries will also be required to pay licensing fees as determined by the minister, or the district council, to be renewed annually.

According to the Bill, persons found selling alcoholic drinks without licenses face up to five years imprisonment or a fine of Shs10m. Importers without licences face a 10-year imprisonment or a fine of Shs20m, or both.

The proposed law also seeks to prohibit the sale of alcoholic drinks to specified persons and regulate the advertisement of alcoholic drinks and ensure public awareness on the dangers of alcohol abuse.

Ms Opendi told the House that the time is ripe for a new law that addresses the current issues surrounding alcohol use, since many of the existing laws; the Liquor Act, the Portable Spirits Act, and the Enguli Act, are now obsolete.

Ms Opendi further cited alcohol as the most abused substance, whose unregulated use is also associated with violence, traffic accidents and non communicable diseases.

Ms Opendi, however, explained that the Bill does not seek to stop people from consuming alcohol, but only to regulate consumption.

Citing figures by the World Health Organisation that in 2018 placed Uganda as the highest alcohol consuming country in East Africa, legislators agreed with Ms Opendi that government should regulate the alcohol trade.

Clause 14 of the Bill proposes that alcoholic drinks should only be sold between noon and 6am, with the exception of supermarkets, wholesale shops, and depots.

The Bill further seeks to ban the sale of alcoholic drinks to officers of the law in uniform. The Bill states that supply of alcoholic drinks to minors will attract a Shs40m fine or three years imprisonment or both.

Buyers will be required to present their National ID, or other form of identification for proof of age if the Bill becomes law. Sale of adulterated alcohol will attract a fine of Shs4m or a five-year imprisonment or both.

Consumer protection

Parliament’s Committee on Trade, Tourism and Industry will travel to neighbouring Kenya to, among other things, benchmark on Kenya’s consumer protection law as part of the processes to legislate a solid legal framework to protect Uganda’s consumers.

The proposals to be polished are contained in the Consumer Protection and Management Bill, 2022.

Even when he declined to share details of the available draft that the committee currently has, the committee chairperson, Mr Mwine Mpaka, revealed that the main aim of the law is to tame major irregularities suffered by Ugandans due to unscrupulous dealers.

Mr Mpaka said the proposed law seeks to close the gap in the current legal regime that is exploited by business persons to fleece Ugandans through cartel pricing, loans issued with unfair interest rates and substandard goods that consequently compromise people’s health.

Last Friday, legislators on the Trade Committee told journalists that they had resolved to take up and process a comprehensive law to centrally tame the inconsistencies on the Ugandan trade-community space.

After 14 people died due to consumption of poisonous liquor in Arua City, the State Minister for Trade, Industry and Cooperatives, Mr David Bahati, told Parliament that the government was in advanced stages of introducing a consumer protection law to insulate consumers from substandard goods.