Moroto urges government to intensify crackdown on deadly crude spirits

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Moroto district has appealed to the Government to put up a spirited fight against the transportation of the illicit gin to Karamoja region. According to the district authorities, 70 per cent of the alcohol on the market poses a great public health problem.

Speaking during the destruction of the recently confiscated potent gin believed to be worth shillings 100 million, assistant Resident District Commissioner Mark Aol Musooka said alcohol related diseases claim several lives every month.

The function was held in the backyard of the Moroto Central Police Station on November 24, 2025, afternoon, where a total of 368 jerricans, each carrying a capacity of 30 litres, were exhausted in an unrestricted pit.

“People are drinking what they do not understand because it’s cheap pombe," he said, adding that this has claimed so many lives in the villages, wondering why the trade persists, yet traders have lost unspecified millions.

Ass. RDC Moroto Mark Aol Musooka presides over the destruction of 368 jerricans of waragi confiscated from traders a week ago. (Photo by Olandason Wanyama)

However, Musooka said if the Government has good intentions for its people, then the local potent gin should be taken for further distillation to get rid of the harmful substances.

“With food scarcity in the families, most of them take alcohol as food and sleep for days,” he said.

Musooka added that a recent survey conducted indicated loss of at least an adult daily or a youth, or an infant because the mothers subject them to consuming waragi whenever they feel hungry.

“Most mothers prefer giving babies alcohol to make them sleep off,” he said, adding that waragi is the top killer in the region.

Musooka appealed to the security agencies stationed along the entry routes into Moroto to intensify the fight against the transportation of the illicit gin to Karamoja.

He added that gin dealers use several ungazetted routes to elude arrest. 

“I want to congratulate all the officers who have been behind the confiscation of this crude gin.”

South Division chairperson Moroto municipality Isaac Lokol echoed the need for the Government to refine the local potent gin before consumption.

“I want to implore the Government to take the gin to be refined,” he noted, adding that the action removes toxic substances before sale to Karamoja.

He said, despite the ban on sachets some years ago, the situation has escalated and worsened, leading to the death of several family members.

Lokol urged the government to impose high taxes on the illicit gin, saying this could help regulate excessive consumption.

“We want to see illicit players suffer with penalties,” he noted, adding that the confiscation and the court orders for destruction may not help us.

So far, an estimated 10,000 litres of waragi have been destroyed in Moroto district in the past three weeks.

Richardson Lokeris, the village chairperson of Nakapelimen in Moroto municipality, said the consumption has left many families in abject poverty.

He adds that whatever they earn is spent on drinking waragi, hence several cases of liver cirrhosis is on the rise and may reach alarming levels in the sub-region.