While the ban was enacted for next January 1, local producers of these liqueurs have obtained a new delay from the government.

Three days before the end of 2022, Ahmadou’s business is booming. His box of cigarettes installed in a corner of the street in the Tsinga neighborhood is teeming with people.

On its display are prominently packets of plastic bag whisky. The young Bello, visibly unemployed, who has just bought himself one, tells us that it is to drown his worries and especially for lack of money that he consumes whisky in sachets.

“It costs me 100F or 125 FCFA depending on the brand. I take at least 10 a day. But a beer costs at least 500 or 650 FCFA. Where am I going to find this money,” he justifies himself. Far from being an isolated case, the Trade practiced by Ahmadou finds him very happy in Yaounde with varying fortunes.

Generally consumed in Cameroon by young people and people who have almost no income, bagged whiskey resists the test of time. According to focus media Afrique, in 2014, three members of the government, namely: the Ministers of Health, Trade, and Industry, signed a joint decree prohibiting the sale of these liquors harmful to health from September 12 of this year-.

But local producers had 24 months to comply with this new regulation. And ran out of stock. In 2016, they obtained an extension until 2018, then until 2022. In the meantime, some unpredictable events have occurred such as the Covid 19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine.

“These two events caused the producers of bagged whiskey to decline in business and therefore they did not have enough resources to invest; because migrating to a new packaging requires the purchase of new machines. On this basis, they have posed the problem to the Government to demand a new deadline and the public authorities have granted them four (04) more years”, declares Prince Mpondo, the president of the Cameroon Consumers’ Coalition (CCC) which works for a long time on the subject with public authorities.