Oh no: serious alcohol shortage in Zanzibar

Are you planning to book a last minute vacation to the sun soon? Or maybe you are already working on planning your summer vacation. If you are aiming for tropical beaches, high temperatures, and clear blue water, then it might just be that you end up at Zanzibar, but if having drinks or a glass of wine with dinner is also a requirement for your vacation, then you better go somewhere else.

This island, which belongs to Tanzania, will be without alcohol until at least the summer. Whut? Here’s what’s going on: last year the government suddenly postponed the licenses of the three alcohol importers. Because Zanzibar is largely Muslim, it is forbidden to produce alcohol locally, so they are dependent on imports from the mainland.

They have suddenly lost those licenses. Very peculiar: the government has issued three licenses to three other parties, but they cannot meet the enormous demand at all. There are rumors on the island that the three previous license holders did not want to pay the huge bribes.

The consequence of this is that the island is largely without alcohol. The hotels in the north of the island have already switched to serving only soft drinks; if people want alcohol, they are forced to go to the capital, Stone Town. Due to the high demand, the price of alcohol there has already increased by 100 percent, so a night out drinking suddenly becomes an expensive joke…

Unfortunately, it does not look like this will be resolved in the short term. It is hoped that it will come to an end with the summer, but for now, there is no solution. The importers have filed an objection with the government, but since then, everything has come to a standstill.

So if you have planned a vacation to Zanzibar, know that a cocktail on the beach will not be part of it.