TBL hit hard by viroba ban, to retrench workers

THE fall-out from last month’s ban on sachet-packed liquor known as ‘viroba’ has continued with Tanzania Breweries Limited (TBL) yesterday disclosing plans to retrench a sizeable chunk of workers at its subsidiary Tanzania Distilleries Limited (TDL) company.
Reliable sources within TBL, the country’s largest producer of alcoholic beverages, confirmed to The Guardian that a key reason for the retrenchments is the ‘viroba’ ban which has left TDL liquor-packaging machines lying idle and their operators virtually out of work.
TDL was the sole manufacturer of acceptable sachet-packed liquor which, along with a good number of ‘fake’ brands whose sources remain dubious, have all been roped into the blanket ban which took effect from March 1.

According to a joint TBL-TDL statement issued yesterday, the retrenchment exercise will affect at least 50 employees across the entire group.
“After considering all options available, both long term and short term to reduce the impact and extent of our (internal) restructuring, ultimately retrenchment is one of the viable options for the sustainability of (our) business,” reads part of the statement.
The exercise is said to have started on Monday this week (March 27). Efforts to contact TBL head of corporate communications Georgia Mutaghywa for further clarification proved futile as her phone went unanswered for the better part of yesterday.
Apart from TDL, a good number of licensed private ‘viroba’ factories have been forced to close down as a result of the ban on locally-produced or imported alcohol in sachets, which is intended to complement a government push for a switch from hard liquor sachet packaging to bottling technology.
Businesses depending on ‘viroba’ and their customers also appear to have been caught between a rock and a hard place by the ban, which was also aimed at enabling the government to curb tax evasion.
It is estimated that about 600 billion/- is lost through tax evasion due to production and packaging of the hard liquor in plastic sachets. The sachets have also been blamed for increased intake of alcohol even among school-going minors.
The government is currently drafting regulations on the packaging of hard liquor requiring producers, among others, to pack the drinks in returnable bottles of not less than 250 milligrams.