Musicians and Comedians Ask MPs to Reject The Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill 2023.

📸: Musicians and Comedians during a plenary session in Parliament.

Artists and comedians have asked Parliament to reject the Alcoholic Drinks Control Bill, 2023 warning that any attempt to impose a time limit within which alcohol is sold in entertainment places will cripple Uganda’s night economy.

Hannington Bugingo, President of Uganda Comedians Association wondered why Parliament has put more focus in the fight against alcohol, yet Uganda is riddled with more cancerous problems like corruption that are eating up the nation.

"Let us go back to the drawing table as a nation because we are in a catastrophe. What measures have they put in place to fight corruption? Practically none, so why are we running away from the number one cancer which is corruption and then run to probably cancer that isn’t as dangerous as corruption. Let us rethink what we are evaluating and we enforce the laws that are there to make sure that people aren’t alcoholics and also address the unemployment because many of the young people are drinking because they don’t have jobs,” said Bugingo.

📸: Musician Phina Mugerwa. 

Artist Phina Mugerwa wondered why Government isn’t put more emphasis to rid Uganda of illicit alcoholic drinks that are more dangerous to human health, than regulate the night economy remarking, “We mind about the health of our fans and when it comes to alcohol, we always perform from different parts of the country but the alcohol which affects people’s brains and is making them go crazy are the cheapest products, that means, there is a problem with Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS). We have to look at the last bill and ask, has UNBS done its mandate before authorizing people to bring products on the market. Sometimes it isn’t the consumption or amount of alcohol taken, it is upon the product, what are they bringing on the market?”.

Robert Kawuki aka Ssenga Ssebanga has totally ignored the crucial role that artists in the entertainment industry play especially relieving their audiences of the stress noting, “They are going to cripple us because some of us were born and raised in bars and we have made our names in bars and if you are to say that bars should start selling alcohol at 5Pm and close at 11Pm, that would be done because we usually start our performances at 11Pm. As artists there is something we have been contributing to the nation. We are doctors, we treat people by relieving them of stress, people come to us with debts of school fees, rent and loans. If they come to the bars and we relieve them of this stress.”