THE FOOD and Drugs Board (FDB) has instructed distillery companies in the country to withdraw profane names given to some brands of alcoholic beverages on the Ghanaian market or risk losing their licences to produce such beverages, Chronicle has established.

The distillery companies have also been directed to stop all media advertisements and programmes promoting the sale and consumption of the alcoholic beverages with profane names and immoral messages in both the print and electronic media effective February 15, this year.

The brand names are also expected to be changed or the particular brand banned from the Ghanaian market.

This reporter gathered that a meeting was held two weeks ago with representatives of the various alcoholic distilleries where the obviously unpalatable news was made known to them.

Marketing and bank accounts are expected to be largely affected, especially looking at the competitiveness of the industry, where all the stakeholders will predictably make huge investments in advertising and marketing whatever brand name they will choose to replace the popular profane ones they have already spent millions to advertise.

Alcoholic brand names such as ‘Ke ba shoo’ (come and rub), ‘Lobilobi ginger wine’, ‘‘Wo ba ada anaa’ (is your child asleep), and ‘Aben wo ha’ will have to be changed, according to the FDB director or the companies risk their products being banned from the Ghanaian market, where business looks good, considering the Ghanaian’s taste for alcohol.

Mr. James Lartey, Head of Public Relations at FDB, admitted in an interview yesterday that there was an on-going battle to have brand names and advertisement promoting such profane names with alcohol banned.

According to him, the news to have advertisements promoting such brand names banned and the names changed accordingly was made known to the representatives of the various distillery companies at a meeting two weeks ago.

"We asked them to withdraw adverts on ‘Atadwe Ginger’ and the rest”, he said.

Continuing, the soft spoken Mr. Lartey said February 15, this year has been scheduled as the deadline for all the adverts to be withdrawn, while a deadline for the profane names to be changed is yet to be taken, considering the time frame for such registrations.

He said the distilleries have also been instructed to start processing all alcoholic beverages for registration with the FDB with immediate effect, saying all beverages that would not be registered will be deemed illegal for sale in Ghana.

He made it clear that companies that will still maintain the profane names would not be registered, thus rendering them illegal for the Ghanaian market.

Lartey regretted the unfortunate trend whereby distilleries having recognised the weak moral decadence in society use profane names as marketing strategy to outdo competitors, adding “we have to educate them.”

Already, even before the exercise becomes effective, sales of beverages distilled by Heritage distillery have gone down, according to the man who handles the cash, the company’s accountant, John Duku.

He admitted that sales would largely be affected when the names change because it will take time for customers to identify such brands.

Doku told this reporter on Sunday, this week that sales started going down after a GTV report indicated that some people were not in favour of such names as they promote profanity.

‘Lobilobi Atagwe Ginger wine’ and a host of alcohol brands with profane names are distilled by the Accra Pig Farm-based Heritage distillery.

Mr. Napoleon Agboadah, Head of Public Education of the National Commission on Civic Education (NCCE), supported the stance of the FDB when contacted yesterday afternoon, saying, “it is in the right direction.”

“We want profane language out of our society”, he said, adding “decency is what we require.’

He held that the advertisement of such profane languages on television and radio must be done away with, because it has the impact to affect the youth to a great extent.