The Eastern Cape Liquor Board must carry a large portion of the blame for the 2022 Enyobeni Tavern disaster that led to the death of 21 young people, the evidence leader in the inquest into their deaths said this week.
Advocate Luvuyo Vena went so far as to suggest in his closing arguments that if the board was a person “they would be dragged by the collar to the criminal courts to be prosecuted” for the terrible deaths of the 21 young people whose ages ranged from just 13 to 21.
He said that both the police and the board had ignored numerous community complaints dating back to some years before the tragedy.
Vena’s statement is a harsh indictment on the board and its terminal indolence in carrying out its duties.
Its failure to do its job resulted in a tragedy the magnitude of which is difficult to describe.
The board brags on its website that its mission includes being a responsible regulator that promotes compliance while mitigating the adverse effects of excessive alcohol consumption.
But the experience of Enyobeni tells a different story.
Its failure to do its job resulted in a tragedy the magnitude of which is difficult to describe.
More than 20 people, most of them children who should never have been allowed on the horribly overcrowded premises in the first place, died a painful, frightening death.
There seems to have been multiple compliance failures.
The premises was reportedly not fit for purpose, it was overcrowded and alcohol was being sold to children.
It was not a one-off failure that led to this tragedy.
The SA Human Rights Commission report on the incident, as well as the evidence before the inquest, suggest a pattern of weak oversight, and enforcement as well as regulatory complacency by the board.
If a regulator licenses outlets without the capacity to monitor them properly it moves from being an enforcer to part of a system that enables harm.
The board has said in almost all of its subsequent annual reports that it continues to face challenges around compliance.
In its annual performance plan for 2025/2026, the board says that about 32.5% (about R27m) of its R83m annual budget will be spent on “compliance and enforcement but it is simply not enough given the vastness of the province”.
But, whatever its challenges, the board has to do better.
And the department of economic development, under which it falls, must facilitate this through appropriate budgeting and improved oversight.
It is just not good enough that so many of these regulators created by the government and funded by the taxpayer fail to meet the mandate for which they were created.
And it is almost always the most vulnerable in our society that pay the price.
Daily Dispatch
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