Fight brewing over the return of new smoking laws for South Africa
With the reintroduction of the Control of Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Bill in Parliament set for this week (4 September), the chorus of warnings by those against the Bill continues.
Critics argue that the Bill is likely to push consumers towards harmful illicit markets and stress that it lacks practical, people-centric solutions for smoking cessation and harm reduction.
Additionally, some say that it would severely impact around 2.2 million informal traders who rely on cigarette sales, worries about potential job losses in the tobacco industry, increased illicit trade, reduced tax revenue, and inadequate consideration for small traders and farmers.
Broadly, the Bill is proposed legislation that will regulate the sale, advertising, and use of tobacco products and electronic delivery systems.
The Department of Health (DoH) says that it seeks to strengthen public health protection measures, align the tobacco control law with the World Health Organisation Framework Convention and repeal 1993’s Tobacco Control Act.
Among other things, it seeks to:
- Impose stricter product and related product processing, manufacturing and import standards;
- Regulate tobacco product and electronic delivery system advertising;
- Standardise the ‘packaging and appearance’ of tobacco and electronic delivery system products;
- Prohibit smoking in all indoor public places as well as ‘certain outdoor areas’;
- Ban cigarette vending machines;
- Make ‘plain packaging with graphic health warnings and pictorials’ mandatory; and
- Ban the display of tobacco products and electronic delivery systems at points-of-sale.
Concerns
The National Informal Traders Alliance of South Africa (Nitasa) have said that their concerns of the potentially detrimental impact that the Bill would have on informal traders have fallen on deaf ears.
Nitasa argues that the that adoption of the Bill in its current form could severely impact around 2.2 million informal traders in South Africa, including hawkers and spaza shop owners, who heavily rely on (legal) cigarette sales.
Kurt Yeo, the Co-Founder of Vaping Saved My Life, believes that the Bill “will prohibit, restrict, ostracise and entrench further stigma on smokers and those who have chosen a safer alternative. It does not provide solutions, and if passed in its present format will severely affect lives.”
“There are 11.1-million South Africans over 15 who smoke regularly – it’s unrealistic to think they will all quit overnight [but] perhaps that’s what government policymakers believe when they formulate draconian anti-tobacco laws and increase excise duties,” wrote Yeo in a piece for Business Day.
According to the 2021 Global Adult Tobacco Survey (GATS) South Africa report, daily smokers in South Africa smoke 8.5 cigarettes a day, while the prevalence of tobacco use among adults in the country is 29.4%, which equates to 12.7 million people.
21.2% of adults in South Africa smoke tobacco daily.
The Department of Health’s Deputy Director of General Primary Healthcare, Jeanette Hunter, said that there has been an increase in the use of hookah, e-cigarettes and vapes, particularly among young people.
“The reality is that these measures only push the majority into the growing and potentially more harmful illicit market. These are the unintended yet predictable consequences of irrational lawmaking, as seen during the 2020 tobacco sales ban in the heart of the Covid lockdown.”
According to Statista, revenue from the legal cigarettes market in South Africa will amount to an estimated R268 billion in 2024.
While the cigarette market in South Africa remains prevalent, its illicit trade has boomed, and those against the Bill believe that such legislation could fuel even further growth.
The South African government has lost an estimated R119 billion in excise and Value-Added Tax (VAT) revenue between 2002 and 2022 as a result of the country’s sprawling illicit cigarette market.
In 2022 alone, R15 billion was lost in excise revenue and R3 billion in VAT revenue, according to a recent study by Nicole Vellios and Corné van Walbeek from the Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products at the University of Cape Town.
According to the study, the illicit cigarette market made up 5% of the country’s cigarette market in 2009. In 2022, it was 58%, a slight decrease from its peak of 60% in 2021.
“To motivate people to stop smoking, we need people-centric cessation strategies and tobacco harm reduction — policies, programmes and practices that minimise the negative effects of risky behaviours,” said Yeo.
Other concerns about the Bill raised during the public participation process include potential job losses, reduced tax revenue from legal tobacco sales, insufficient consideration for small and emerging tobacco farmers, and inadequate monitoring and enforcement capacity.
Picking up where they left off
Public consultations on the bill during the sixth administration covered seven of nine provinces before the process ended.
The DoH said that it hopes to speedily process the new laws, taking off from where it left off in the sixth administration when the bill lapsed.
The starting point will be to complete the public participation process, it said, where it will move to complete public hearings in the outstanding two provinces.
Media statements from committee hearings indicated broad support for the bill’s health goals. Proponents argue that smoking-related illness data necessitates legislative change, advocating for health risk disclosures in tobacco ads and restrictions on youth access, especially concerning vaping.
However, critics have raised practical concerns, suggesting the new laws could worsen several significant issues.
President of Nitasa, Rosheda Muller, believes that these raised concerns have however been like water off a camel’s back to lawmakers.
Muller said that “the Bill wasn’t wrapped up before the last Parliament ended, and now it’s being pushed through the Portfolio Committee on Health again.”
During several public hearings, the SA Legal Academy said calls were made for the Bill to be sent to the National Economic Development and Labour Council for more robust consultation.
“In addition, it appears that no socio-economic impact assessment was ever conducted.”
“With those issues in mind, it remains to be seen how the new National Assembly Health Committee proceeds,” said the SA Legal Academy.
Read: How much more you’re paying for petrol, electricity and food in South Africa vs a year ago
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