In a literal sense, the now infamous video of weekend revellers at Cappello restaurant, at the Gaborone CBD, engaged in reckless merrymaking was a snapshot of scenes that have been playing themselves out across the country after the ban on alcohol trade and consumption was lifted. There is really nothing surprising about what is happening because each time that the ban has been lifted, Cappello-like scenes (or worse) are the result. What came across as surprising however, was a statement by the Acting Director of Public Health Services, Dr. Pamela Smith-Lawrence, that followed the chaotic scenes at Cappello. In it, she states that the Ministry has no wish “to recommend a return to stricter restrictions in the country” and warns that if behaviour such as that in the Cappello video clip persists, making such recommendation would become “inevitable.”
The statement raises an obvious question – and one Sunday Standard put to the Ministry: why does the Ministry (and indeed the entire decision-making apparatus that it is part of) expect this behaviour to change when, despite numerous warnings similar to hers, it has persisted throughout the pandemic?
In response, the Ministry’s Chief Public Relations Officer, Dr. Christopher Nyanga, begins by alluding to the engagement between the alcohol industry and government on how the sale of alcohol could be allowed to continue without any violation of COVID-19 protocols.
“Whereas the position of government has been on restricting and if needs be, stopping, the sale and consumption of alcohol, in cases where the two are seen as contributing to the spread of COVID-19, the alcohol industry has not been in support of stoppage but only restrictions and possible sanction to those who breach the protocols. This is a fair position which the ministry is not opposed to. For this reason, the ministry believes that when the industry makes a commitment to ensure observance of COVID-19 protocols, it has to be given the benefit of the doubt,” Nyanga says.
Following each dry spell, the Botswana Alcohol Industry Association routinely complains bitterly about how the ban affects the businesses of its members and lobbies hard to have the ban lifted. It has even peddled the fantastical idea that it can somehow control the behaviour of drinkers. Last year, it came up with a campaign it called “Di Nwele Dladleng”, an entreaty to drinkers to drink at home. Not only did the campaign flop, drinking at home is itself problematic and precipitates house parties that the Coordinator Presidential COVID-19 Taskforce, Dr. Kereng Masupu, calls “di-chillas” and has complained about on Btv.
BAIA has unrealistic expectations about a police service that it knows is and has always been under-resourced. At the launch of the “Di Nwele Dladleng” campaign, its chairperson, Mothusi Molokomme, announced the launch of a whistle-blowing application that enables members of the public to report merrymakers who violate the COVID-19 laws to the police. Enforcement of COVID-19 laws is the responsibility of the police and on the basis of what Molokomme said, BAIA expects an already overstretched and under-resourced police service to take on additional workload emanating from violations of COVID-19 law.
The Botswana Police Service (BPS) has itself proved a weak link in the fight against COVID-19 because it is not tough enough on people who don’t wear masks or social distance appropriately. Appearing on Btv at the start of the second greater Gaborone zone lockdown, the BPS spokesperson, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Dipheko Motube, said that they would no longer treat offenders with kid gloves. Offenders should never have been treated with kid gloves in the first place and doing so caused positive cases to increase.
After the predictable flop of “Di Nwele Dladleng” and on the basis of the rude awakening it had received, BAIA pleaded with drinkers to conduct themselves more responsibly when the second dry spell ended. They didn’t, their behaviour becoming so brazen that the last ban had to be imposed with no absolutely no warning. The last dry spell ended three weeks ago and led to the Cappello chaos. More chaos continues to unfold: over the past weekend, unmasked University of Botswana student-revellers congregated on car park for merrymaking. The situation could become even worse as the state of emergency ends and nightclubs re-open.
Nyanga warns that when the behaviour that can potentially lead to a surge in COVID-19 cases is observed, despite the commitment to observe the COVID-19 protocols, then strict actions will have to be taken. One such action is “suspending sale and consumption of alcohol in the country, if doing so would avert the spread of COVID-19.”
In elaborating the latter point, Nyanga says that “the ministry finds it difficult to support the continued sale and consumption of alcohol when the number of outlets violating COVID-19 protocols seems to be high which then exposes more people to the disease.” The latter, he adds, “can make the ministry support any possible suspension of both sale and consumption of alcohol if doing so would bring down infections and deaths associated with COVID-19.”
The broader point though is whether, based on Botswana’s experience so far and notwithstanding the economic imperatives for keeping the liquor industry afloat, there is any way alcohol trade cannot compromise public health.
“Liquor trade does compromise public health in cases where there is no observance of COVID-19 protocols as was seen in the past few days. It is for this reason that the ministry encourages the alcohol industry to rein in on their members, because non-observance of COVID-19 protocols is a recipe for disaster. It has the potential to reverse the gains made so far which have seen our daily infections going down,” Nyanga says.
