Ghanaians Consume 30 Million Litres of Alcohol Yearly
By Masahudu Ankiilu Kunateh, Ghanadot

The alcohol beverages sector in Ghana is booming as 30 million litres of alcohol are consumed yearly. This shows that the country is seriously producing more alcoholics than the quality human resources needed to effect  the cherished middle income status.

A survey conducted by Ghana Organization on Foetal Alcohol Syndrome (GOFAS, an NGO, estimated that the per capita consumption of alcohol is 1.5 litres - about 7 million gallons of alcohol consumed annually, Doubtlessly, this amount translates to serious economic losses to the individual as well as the nation at large.

The study observed that because of the revenue government gets from the alcohol distillery companies, passing laws for banning companies from producing alcohol has become a problem for every government.

The large consumption of alcohol in the country means a lack of governmental economic policy.  This is what has led some to call for the passage of the "Mental Health Bill" to stem the loss of quality human resources to this alcohol menace..

The Chief Executive Officer of (GOFAS), Mrs. Amanorbea Opoku-Boakye, who spoke to Ghanadot on the effects and other issues relating to alcohol consumption in the country, intimated that the GOFAS is Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) instituted last year under the laws of the country with passion to discourage women of child bearing age from drinking alcohol during pregnancy and the need to fight against mental and physical defects caused by pre-natal alcohol consumption.

According to her, the extent of ignorance of Fetal Alcohol Syndrome (FAS) in Ghana and Africa as whole is so overwhelming that its detrimental effect on the unborn baby is left unchecked.

Instructively, FAS is a permanent brain damage and physical birth defects that occurs in the offspring of women who drink alcohol during pregnancy. It is life time brain damage that never goes away.

Mrs. Opoku-Boakye intimated that a research embarked upon by GOFAS in three regions of the country notably, the Greater Accra, Central and Western revealed that out of 150 women of child bearing age between the ages of 16-35, 129 respondents representing 86% drunk various forms of alcohol beverages during pregnancies.

"This result triggered the need for more intense awareness creation, so the organization went to six more communities in the Greater Accra Region to sensitize women about the noxious effects that alcohol have on them", she disclosed.

The CEO emphasized that GOFAS has deemed it necessary to undertake this gigantic task of discouraging alcohol consumption amongst women by intensifying their effort to spread the word. We hope in the near future to be able to get the alcoholic distilleries on board with the organization to achieve to their goal, by putting labels on the bottles just like the cigarette companies.

Mrs. Opoku-Boakye observed that our economy is suffering and will continue to suffer because the human resources persons are left to their plight due to mental illness which probably happened through no fault of theirs.

She therefore appealed to the government and NGOs to support her organisation's quest to curb mental disorders in the country, stressing that the core strategy of GOFAS would be to deal with mental and physical disabilities from their root causes as far as FAS-related illnesses are concerned.

GOFAS, according to her would carry out its strategy through intensive awareness creation and advocacy across the country in the medium term, while in the long term, the organization aims to embark upon the building of respite care facilities to compliment the effort of government and other organizations to professionally take care and educate children and adults with mental and physical disabilities.

In order to sustain our programme into the foreseeable future, funding for the activities of the organization would be generated from members, sponsorships, donations and revenue from the respite care projects,Mrs. Opoku-Boakye indicated.



 

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