Magistrate calls for alcohol ban review

THE alcohol ban in Southern Highlands needs to reviewed, a village court magistrate says.
“By looking at the flow of alcohol into the province, it that there is no ban and we cannot claim our province is alcohol-free,” village court magistrate Nena Naik Solu said.
Naik Solu, from the Lower Mendi local level government, in Imbonggu district, said: “We are pretending that the province is alcohol free when people are making fast money by smuggling liquor through the boom gates despite security presence.
“Are we really serious about implementing the liquor ban to maintain peace?
“We cannot make laws that can affect thousands of people when we cannot implement the policies.”
Naik Solu said youths were affected.
“They now know how to produce home-brew, which they did not know before and students are going for the cheap home-brew sold on the streets,” he said. Members of the Southern Highlands provincial assembly extended the alcohol ban in the province in December.
Governor William Powi showed his appreciation and fully supported the extension of the ban by  promising to allocate a K1 million in the 2014 budget to fully implement the policy.
An alcohol committee was set up to furnish plans on how best they could use the policy.
Solu said though Powi wanted the province to be free of alcohol-related problems as it had the potential to destroy the province.
He said the authorities tasked with carrying out the duty were not implementing the policy properly.
“Police in Mendi must be properly equipped to arrest those producing and selling home-brew, crackdown of illegal liquor outlets and the liquor committee should come up with best plans to make sure the province is totally free of liquor.”