The minister for economic monitoring Maurice Kagimu cautioned graduands against excessive consumption of alcohol, a vice greatly threatening the Ugandan economy.

The United Nations Development Program (UNDP), ranks Uganda first among the world’s top alcohol drinking countries with about 110 million liters of alcohol consumed every year. There are a number of contributing factors, including alcohol’s deeply rooted importance in Ugandan culture. However, political instability and poverty in Uganda have also played a big role, with effects contrary to the norm–increasing alcohol use rather than decreasing it.

To reduce the country’s consumption of alcohol, Kagimu says that the government is focusing on the youth in educational institutions and in villages to engage in development-oriented activities instead of wasting away at drinking joints.

Alcohol is noted as one of the leading causes of domestic violence in Ugandan families today, according to a report to Parliament by the Jurists. The commonest form of domestic violence resulting out of alcoholism is physical abuse and child abuse, which including wife beating, torture, biting and stabbing, which accounted for 25 percent of the respondents surveyed. Some incidences have resulted in loss of life.