Speaker 1: Now a story by Nick Wilson, journalist at News twenty
Speaker 1: four really caught my eye. It's based on comments made
Speaker 1: by the Drinks Federation of South Africa and they estimate
Speaker 1: that almost one in five drinks consumed in South Africa
Speaker 1: we're talking about alcoholic drinks now contains illicit alcohol and
Speaker 1: that may in turn include deadly additions such as methanol
Speaker 1: and even industrial ethanol. So what's going on here? Where
Speaker 1: is this coming from? How's it finding its way into
Speaker 1: the South African market. Let's welcome to the show then,
Speaker 1: doctor Shamal Ramasa, who is head of research at the
Speaker 1: Drinks Federation of South Africa. Doctor Ramasa, welcome and thanks
Speaker 1: very much for your time. Is this a problem we
Speaker 1: can connect, for example, to the restrictions imposed during the
Speaker 1: COVID era on alcohol or has this been going on
Speaker 1: for much longer affinuon.
Speaker 2: So yes, we find that, you know, listed alcohol has
Speaker 2: been in the country for longer than COVID. But it
Speaker 2: seems that COVID has exacerbated the problem itself because it
Speaker 2: proved that there was a lucrative market for this type
Speaker 2: of alcohol in South Africa. So yes, we can't say
Speaker 2: that the lockdown and alcohol dan have exacclybated the infit
Speaker 2: alcohol architecture in South Africa.
Speaker 1: So, doctor Ramasa, is this alcohol that masquerades as, for example,
Speaker 1: being something else? Would it have a label that says
Speaker 1: either counterfeiting an existing whiskey brand for the sake of argument,
Speaker 1: or invents another whiskey brand like Highland Fog or whatever.
Speaker 1: I hope there isn't something called that, but you know
Speaker 1: what I mean, trying to look authentic, or is this
Speaker 1: stuff going in unlabeled bottles and perhaps being sold in
Speaker 1: bulk in some form.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a combination of all that you mentioned, So
Speaker 2: I think it might be interesting to, you know, to
Speaker 2: define your listed alcohol. The first is the one that
Speaker 2: you did mention, and that's the counterfeit and illicit brands.
Speaker 2: And these are fraudulent imitations of legitimate brands. But it
Speaker 2: could also then be uh, you know, unknown bottles or mummiking,
Speaker 2: uh you know known brands where there's falsification and tampering
Speaker 2: you know of the of the the bottles itself. So
Speaker 2: so that's the first part. The second one that we
Speaker 2: get is contraband or smuggling, and this is alcohol which
Speaker 2: is original and it's legitimate, but it's being illegally important
Speaker 2: or smuggled uh into the country itself and basically you know,
Speaker 2: another example of this is round shipping, where it's uh
Speaker 2: you know, alcohol taking cross borders so we pay no
Speaker 2: duties on them, and then it's brought back into the
Speaker 2: country and it escapes the tax system as well. Then
Speaker 2: you get tax leakage. And this is really where uh
Speaker 2: you know, there's misclassification of products. For example, you get
Speaker 2: a sugar fermented ale versus a wine and because they
Speaker 2: are class if I differently, the manufacturers themselves are paying
Speaker 2: the incorrect taxes on them, so it's considered ulicit. And
Speaker 2: the last one is something that we know, and that's
Speaker 2: your traditional alcohol theres is which are made but unfortunately
Speaker 2: sold right and they're sold then no taxes are paid
Speaker 2: on them. So those those are the broad categories that
Speaker 2: we define illicit alcohol under.
Speaker 1: It's important that you've spelled out the range of things
Speaker 1: going on because while you were talking Dr Ramas, I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think what do we do about it? And
Speaker 1: it would seem given the range of offences, there's all
Speaker 1: sorts of players who need to be involved. Obviously there's
Speaker 1: you as the industry looking to protect businesses that you've
Speaker 1: built up over time and with huge investments of money.
Speaker 1: But then there's obviously excise issues as well. Who's dealing
Speaker 1: with this? Do we have a strategy that takes into
Speaker 1: account the multiple manifestations of this broad problem.
Speaker 2: That's a great question.
Speaker 1: A think.
Speaker 2: It's one of the outcomes of a panel discussion that
Speaker 2: we held at Gibbs University yesterday where it was decided
Speaker 2: that there needs to be a whole of society approach
Speaker 2: towards tackling this problem. And the whole of society involves
Speaker 2: the industry itself, but also government representatives from from sales,
Speaker 2: from the department located industry from a law enforcement but
Speaker 2: we also rely heavily, will rely heavily on the public
Speaker 2: to report these matters so that we can you know,
Speaker 2: get proper intelligence and do proper rates on the type
Speaker 2: of illegal manufacturers. So, you know, it was decided yesterday
Speaker 2: that the Drings Federation of South Africa, you know, should
Speaker 2: coordinate this type of multi stakeholder project so that we
Speaker 2: can get the best type of outcomes.
Speaker 1: Is there is you know, for example, the illicit alcohol
Speaker 1: in other words, not well known brands, for example, being smuggled,
Speaker 1: but where stuff is being made some well, let me
Speaker 1: ask the question differently, is a lot of the stuff
Speaker 1: being made in South Africa? If it isn't and is
Speaker 1: being imported, do we know which countries are the key suppliers.
Speaker 2: So it's a combination of both. You would start to
Speaker 2: see in the media recently there's quite a lot of
Speaker 2: buss happening. In fact, there was one in Johannesburg, I
Speaker 2: think on Monday where huge amounts of fake alcohol was
Speaker 2: being produced. And then there are other similar operations that
Speaker 2: we have seen been bussed inn in Free States and
Speaker 2: so on. So South Africa does have its own production facilities,
Speaker 2: but also because it's become such a lucrative market, there
Speaker 2: are global companies for the want of better words, that
Speaker 2: are producing these counterfeit brands and a maskl and because
Speaker 2: of our poorest borders, unfortunately we're starting to see them,
Speaker 2: you know, father into the country as well. So it's
Speaker 2: a combination of both.
Speaker 1: Let's talk about the ethanol. In the methanol, explain to
Speaker 1: us what's being done there and share with us your
Speaker 1: thoughts on some of the risks for people who might
Speaker 1: and almost certainly unknowingly drink it.
Speaker 2: Sure, so whenever the illegal manufacturers try to counterfort the product,
Speaker 2: they try to increase the strength of their brew or
Speaker 2: the you know, the alcohol itself, and they start adultraating
Speaker 2: it with chemicals. So we run a chest a study
Speaker 2: last year actually at the University of causing the LTEL,
Speaker 2: and we tried to chemically analyze what's in these products.
Speaker 2: And to your point, we find huge concentrations of methanol
Speaker 2: or industry or grade ethanol. Now, these have deliterious effects
Speaker 2: on human health. For example, methanol in itself causes irreversible
Speaker 2: blindness if it's drunk in high concentration, it causes toxicity
Speaker 2: of the blood, a condition we call metabolic acidosis, which
Speaker 2: can lead to multiple organ failure and almost always you know,
Speaker 2: a company by deer. In fact, from our study itself,
Speaker 2: we showed the consumers actually told us that twenty nine
Speaker 2: percent of them knew of somebody who have physically died
Speaker 2: from consuming counterfeit alcohol you know, industrial get alcohol itself
Speaker 2: also had these these effects on the body, including prospiratory distress,
Speaker 2: cardiac failure, and so on. So these products are extremely
Speaker 2: dangerous to consume, thank you.
Speaker 1: Very much. That's those are the thoughts there of doctor
Speaker 1: Shamil Ramasa, head of Research at the Drinks Federation of
Speaker 1: South Africa. Illegal alcohol and its implications for health, for jobs,
Speaker 1: for the collection of taxes and revenue. Is it something
Speaker 1: you're aware of. I mean maybe in circles that you
Speaker 1: move in, maybe people have approached you with what they
Speaker 1: say a good deals on what might be premium brands.
Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not a space that I'm involved in,
Speaker 1: except during COVID when there was a crackdown on alcohol.
Speaker 1: I did keep getting WhatsApps offering me wine for sale
Speaker 1: at extremely inflated prices. And the reason these people had
Speaker 1: my number was I'd actually got some cats from them,
Speaker 1: but they thought, well, may as well give him a try. Anyway,
Speaker 1: that was a long, long, long time ago. Seven oh
Speaker 1: two drive. It's four o'clock