Wards address homebrew issues

HOMEBREW consumption in wards of East New Britain is now the main cause of death, fights and disharmony in the province, a senior police officer says.
Provincial police commander Chief Insp Joseph Tabali said last month two men lost their lives as a result of getting drunk from homebrew and fighting.
Vunadidir ward in the Gazelle’s Toma-Vunadidir local level government, a ward that lost one of these men, saw this as a turning point and decided to mobilise its ward members to surrender their homebrew-making kegs and talk about the negative impacts and destruction caused by making, selling and drinking homebrewed alcohol.
In a small gathering on Friday afternoon witnessed by the community policing heads and Gazelle administration staff, the ward surrendered eight kegs that had been used in their ward to produce homebrew.
Vunadidir ward member Cleopas Warpit said this was the first time for the ward that people came in voluntarily to surrender these items.
He said seeing one of their own lose his life because of homebrew, had caused the ward development committees to take action as they did not want lives to be lost unnecessarily.
“We cannot sit back and see law and order ruin our ward, the ward is creating a committee known as the Putim was komiti (watch committee) for them to monitor all homes in the ward.