In September 2016, then Minister of Trade and Industry Rob Davies gazetted the Draft Liquor Amendment Bill for public comment. Ten years on, it has not progressed through the lawmaking process. You could say it’s in legislative limbo.
The costs of inaction are counted in tens of thousands of preventable road accidents, violence and alcohol-related injuries. Alcohol plays a role in six out of 10 femicides, one in two homicides, and at least 27% of fatal crashes linked to driver error. There are other costs largely hidden from public view: South Africa has the highest rate of Foetal Alcohol Syndrome in the world and, over the past decade, about 800 000 babies were born underweight and brain-damaged due to alcohol exposure in the womb.
The Liquor Amendment Bill was intended to make significant changes to the country’s liquor regulatory framework with the aim of improving public safety, reducing the public health burden of heavy drinking and reducing alcohol-related harm by tackling harmful consumption. The Bill would do this by imposing restrictions on alcohol advertising, raising the legal drinking age from 18 to 21 and restricting the distribution and supply of alcohol to unlicenced liquor outlets, among other provisions.
But the liquor industry has staunchly opposed the draft law. Researchers looking into whether the industry was involved in delaying the Bill found that corporate interests had an outsized influence in the unfolding National Economic Development and Labour Council (NEDLAC) process, far outnumbering community representation. Consequently, the study found that the industry’s representation shaped how NEDLAC assessed the proposed law which has been in limbo ever since.
A comprehensive alcohol harms reduction strategy
There have been recent positive developments that could shake things up. The tabling of a new private member’s bill by an EFF parliamentarian last year proposes wide-ranging alcohol advertising restrictions to counter the normalisation and marketing of alcohol. Then, Transport Minister Barbara Creecy announced her intention to tackle drunk driving by lowering the blood alcohol limit to zero. And, in this year’s State of the Nation Address, President Cyril Ramaphosa made a powerful acknowledgement that alcohol leads to violence, road accidents and crime. He called on provincial governments to strengthen the regulation of alcohol by limiting the density of liquor outlets, restricting trading hours and ending the sale of alcohol in large containers.
These developments are taking us in the right direction, but it must be guided by a comprehensive alcohol harms reduction strategy that will direct national legislation and provincial enforcement of laws. This strategy must include the long-delayed tabling of the Draft Liquor Amendment Bill in Parliament.
Since no single method can effectively reduce alcohol-related harm in South Africa on its own, other interventions promoted by the World Health Organisation, but not yet included in the Bill, must also form part of the strategy to reduce harmful consumption and improve public safety and health.
Alcohol reform should include the WHO SAFER strategies and strengthen restrictions on alcohol availability by limiting trading hours so that alcohol is not sold into the early hours of the morning, increasing the risk of accidents and injuries.
In addition, we need to increase alcohol excise taxes and introduce comprehensive pricing policies, such as minimum unit pricing (MUP) which has been successfully implemented in other parts of the world.
MUP is a tested strategy that decreases affordability, especially for low-income groups. International evidence from Scotland’s implementation of MUP, which sets a floor price per unit of alcohol, resulted in a 13.4% drop in alcohol-related deaths and a 4% drop in hospital admissions, with the largest gains in poorer communities.
Although the liquor industry claims such reforms will lead to a surge in illicit trade, international evidence suggests that this prediction is likely overstated. It shows that: well-designed alcohol pricing and comprehensive taxation policies can reduce consumption and harm without a surge in illicit sales, when paired with basic law enforcement.
Now is the time for all public players, including government, civil society, health professionals, communities and responsible industry actors, to contribute meaningfully to shaping alcohol policy through parliamentary and public participation processes.
After a decade of inaction, this year must mark a shift from procedural stalling to momentum building, with leadership moving decisively to finalise and enact legislation that places public health, safety, and social wellbeing at its centre.
Busisiwe Kabane-Bailey is an innovation director at DGMT, whose work focuses on the intersection of gender-based violence and alcohol.
This op-ed was originally published by News24 on 9 March 2026. Find it here.
