Alcohol manufacturers in the country are adding pesticides and farm chemicals in drinks, anti-drugs boss John Mututho has said. The National Campaign Against Drugs and Substance Abuse (Nacada) chair said preliminary tests in drinks submitted to his offices had a huge presence of the farm inputs. Speaking at Naivasha town, Mututho said the pesticides were meant to reduce the time it took for the alcohol to be ready. “Results from the government laboratory and our private investigations indicate that many of the manufacturers are enhancing their drinks with the pesticides to make it stronger and speed up the process,” he said. Mututho added that Nacada has already started the search for such drinks and they will be shutting down more factories whose drinks are found tainted. He said that the addition of pesticides was a common phenomenon in Kisumu where Nacada shut down several factories. Mututho said the closed down factories had a very high number of impurities in their drinks. He warned manufacturers to quit the trend as the ingredients were in some of the alcoholic drinks that killed more than 90 people last month. Mututho also called on bars, wines and spirits outlets without licences to buy temporary permits. “There is a one night licence that costs only Sh1,000. We have already started our investigations on such outlets and we will be raiding them soon,” he added.

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