ENGELA – A health practitioner is calling for the regulation of traditional brew, otombo, citing safety and health concerns. 

Traditional brew, otombo, is one of the popular traditional drinks reported to have a lot of consumers in Namibia.

Dr Matti Kandjimi said while otombo lovers are aplenty and its economic benefits evident, there are some downsides to its continued unregulated trade. 

“It is also high time the traditional brew should be recognised by the ministry for safety purpose because this department has a lot of consumers due to the availability and affordability,” said the doctor.

From a purely health perspective, Kandjimi said despite otombo being brewed and consumed in rural and urban settings, there are no professional standards regulating its production. 

As such, both hygiene and alcohol content are questionable “because nobody really knows what is the amount of alcohol compared to the other alcohol produced professionally”.

He further said otombo has both long and short term effects on a human body. 

“In the short term, it is intoxication as the main active ingredient in the drink is ethanol and when the person is intoxicated, they can run into comma due to decreased level of consciousness,” Kandjimi said. 

Traditional brew consumers are also said to be diagnosed with hypoglycaemia and hypothermia in most cases.

“The traditional brew is also very dangerous because it has unpredicted alcohol level which is not quantified. Other ingredients in the drink are not standardised and there is a risk of consuming unsafe substances including poison. The brew also has high association with mental illness proportional to the alcohol consumption,” said Kandjimi. 

He continued, asserting that generally, the population that consumes the traditional brew do not prioritise nutritious or balanced diets, resulting into malnutrition. 

The flipside

Meanwhile,  for 54-year-old Engela resident Deolinda Nghikundwavali, who has never been formally employed, selling and brewing otombo is all she knows. 

She ventured into the brewing industry of otombo in 2009.

What pushed Nghikundwavali into brewing otombo was to make ends meet for herself, as well as providing for her two children and extended family.

What attracted her to this type of business was the affordability of input costs and an available target market, which are mostly the youth and a few senior citizens. 

To make this celebrated brew, Nghikundwavali uses sorghum, dark brown sugar and water.

“I mix all of these ingredients together and then the drink will ferment the whole night. When I come in the morning, the fermentation process is already done and everything is ready for selling. 

“I keep the sorghum in the drum for a month until the sorghum seeds loose taste and become a soft mud like structure,” said Nghikundwavali.