Deputy President Rigathi Gachagua met with members of Nyandarua County Assembly on Tuesday Morning at his Karen home where they deliberated among other things, how to end the drug abuse menace in the county and the Mount Kenya region at large.
Nyandarua County has passed laws to help address this menace which aligns with DP Gachagua's goal to stamp out drug abuse and tackle alcoholism particularly in the Mt Kenya region.
According to the bill, now enacted, all the sub-counties in Nyandarua are supposed to have an alcoholic drinks regulation committee that receives and vets applications for retail & wholesale licences.
The committee will be mandated to submit quarterly reports detailing the applications received, vetted, and recommended for approval to the County Alcoholic Drinks Regulation & Management Committee.
Further, supermarkets within the county have been outlawed from selling alcoholic drinks, unless the management Committee is satisfied that the applicant has taken measures to ensure that the area in which the sell is to take place cannot be accessed by persons who are under the age of 18 years.
Similarly, a licence to sell alcoholic drinks will also not be granted to oan outlet or premises located within a fast food restaurant.
The county through the new act requires those who want to produce, manufacture or distribute any alcoholic drinks or to operate an establishment selling alcoholic drinks in the county to make an application in writing to the management committee.
Failure to have a licence to manufacture, produce, sell, distribute or dispose alcoholic beverages within Nyandarua, one risks being slapped with a fine of up to Ksh 30,000 or a sentence of up to 4 months.
In 21 days of application for the licence, according to the act, the sub-county committee will prepare a notice bearing the names of all applicants, types of licences applied for, and the premises in respect of which the licences are applied.
The notice of those licenced is to be displayed at the Office of the Deputy County Commissioner.
The Deputy President has asked other Mount Kenya counties to enact such laws to address alcoholism in the region.
“All the bad alcohol, all the illicit drinks, all the poisonous substances were taken to the Central Kenya Region. They were sold during daylight, when chiefs were there, police were there, nobody cared. We were losing almost an entire region. Thanks to President William Ruto for taking the bold step courageously and asking me to lead this war,” the Deputy President stated while in a meeting with the Nyandarua MCAs.
During the meeting, Gachagua promised to take the war on drug abuse beyond the boundaries of Mount Kenya. He stated that he would be going to deal with the use of hard drugs in the Coastal region as leaders of the region had invited him.
Away from that, DP Gachagua continued to downplay the Mount Kenya succession politics stating that the issue of alcohol abuse was a key concern, and anyone thinking of succession had no chance if the people they were supposed to lead were drunk and even lacking identity cards.
