Malawi Police says excessive beer drinking is an offense

Malawi Police Service says excessive beer drinking is an offense, warning that the law enforcers will now start apprehending those offending Section 183 of the Penal Code.

Excessive beer drinking in the Penal Code is termed as “Drunk and incapable”.

According to Southern Region Police spokesperson, Nicolas Gondwa, the country’s security agency is losing a lot of resources through postmortems conducted on deaths caused by excessive beer drinking.

Each postmortem cost the Malawi Police Service K35,000.

“Any person who is drunk and incapable and is found at any public place or drinking joint licensed under Liquor Act, that person will be guilty of an offence and liable to a fine over K100,000,” said Gondwa.

He also emphasized that “any person” shall mean all people including police officers”.

“People should avoid excessive beer drinking or drink and incapable for the betterment of our country. The nation depend on people to develop and government is always concerned with its people.

“That is why we come in to establish cause of any sudden death. So, without the people the State can develop. Every person is counted for and government has interest in every individual that is why we pay K35,000 on each postmortem,” explained Gondwa.

He also warned fellow law enforcers to avoid taking beer while on duty, saying such behaviour reflect badly and put the Malawi Police Service in disrepute.

Gondwa further requested the general public to be responsible and  report to police any suspicious individuals to combat crimes in the country.

“We urged people to stop drink and incapable because we know it leads to crimes. People have committed offences under the influence of alcohol while others have lost their lives because of irresponsible drinking,” said Gondwa.