Home brew ban from Ekutu market hurts vendors

SHAROLDINE BOCKTHE ban of home brewers by the Walvis Bay municipality at Ekutu open market has seen dozens of vendors’ businesses taking a nosedive.

Traditional home brews used to be the biggest commodity at the former Ekutu open market at Walvis Bay where more than 400 brewers made traditional beverages such as oshikundu, epwaka and the famous tombo.

The sale of the home brews went hand in hand with the food prepared on the eastern side of the market. The clients are mainly single men, especially those working at the industrial area in the engineering workshops and fishing factories.

With the advent of Covid-19, vendors were sent home following the hard lockdown of the Erongo and Khomas region last month.

However, the municipality used this opportunity to take down the home brewers’ stalls, which, for years, they have been trying to move out of Ekutu. They moved all the vendors into a new open market next to Ekutu but banned the sale of the home brews.

The communication officer at the municipality, Caty Sheya, said brewers can sell from their private premises if they have the correct licensing and follow the regulations.

“Nationwide, the sale of alcohol is prohibited in municipality markets as per regulations, and the same will apply at Walvis Bay,” noted Sheya.

Homebrew is sold in municipal open markets across the country and it seems only the municipality of Walvis Bay has banned it.

President of the Association of Local Authorities in Namibia (Alan) Katrina Shimbulu dismissed the claim that there is a by-law that prohibits the sale of home-brewed beverages in municipal areas.

A source within the municipality’s health department said the only thing that needs to be done is to ensure that whatever is sold in public is fit for human consumption.

“There are no by-laws that prohibit homebrews in the municipal area. What was there is the old colonial trading rules in the compound that regulated the trading hours of homebrews.

“How can we stop the people’s source of income? That can only be done if there is a health risk linked to the brews or if there is a disease outbreak,” said the source. Filemon David, a long-time brewer, has been affected by the council’s decision to prohibit the sale of his beverages in the new open market.

“I no longer have a venue to sell my traditional brew from, I had to find an alternative to survive,” said David without explaining his new source of living.

Ester Petrus, who has been a vendor for about seven months at the market, demands that the municipality return home-brewed beverages to the open market.

She claimed that 80% of the vendors who were operating inside the market were selling home-brewed beverages, but since the ban many stalls are now vacant, reducing the number of customers for kapana and other products at the market.

“I only make about N$80-100 mid-month and N$200-300 at the end of the month selling cooked food. It is not enough to pay for my rent, the municipality fee of N$97,20, food and other necessities,” she stressed.

The new market is behind a high wall, which is not visible to passers-by because of the few activities around the market. This has forced vendors, like Patricia Ndapuka and Timeya Panduleni, to sell traditional uncooked food and dried fish under an umbrella outside the market.

“We want home brew to be permitted at the market since they attract our customers,” they stated.

Theresia Shihulika, a street vendor and member of Affirmative Repositioning (AR) Walvis Bay, remarked that they have proposed that the council divide the old and new markets into two different sections. One for all types of food and the other for home-brewed beverages and alcohol.

“When Ekutu was under renovation, they promised the people they would just renovate and people would go back to their places. We thought that they would come up with a better plan and a better structure for these people,” said Shihulika.

She added that some of the traditional brewers from the former Ekutu open market have relocated to the northern part of the country to sell their home brews, as this was the only way that they could make a living.

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