The Beverage Association of South Africa says that a soft drink tax will make South Africans poorer, not thinner.<\/p>\n
The government has proposed a 20% tax on sugar sweetened drinks. Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced earlier this year that a sugar tax will be levied with effect from 1 April 2017.<\/p>\n
BEVSA says that through voluntary industry-driven initiatives\u00a0 – such as reformulation and smaller pack sizes – the beverage industry has reduced 53kj per litre.<\/p>\n
“This proposed soft drink tax will cost you at least 20% more for soft drinks to remove a half teaspoon of sugar from our daily average intake of 12 638 kj,” it said.<\/p>\n
Phil Gutsche, chairman of Coca-Cola Beverages Africa, has said that South Africa could lose as many as 60,000 jobs in the beverage industry because of the proposed tax.<\/span><\/p>\n According to Reuters, the\u00a0beverage sector employs approximately 200,000 people in a country where unemployment exceeds 26%.<\/p>\n BEVSA said that many of those jobs on the line are amongst small spaza owners and vendors in the informal sector.<\/p>\n \u201cBecause it is an excise duty and not a sales tax, soft drink manufacturers may also have to increase the price of other drinks too \u2013 including healthier options such as bottled water and fruit juice to cross-subsidise losses or, in the case of smaller soft drink manufacturers to merely stay in business.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe regressive nature of this tax is that the poor simply pay more,\u201d said BEVSA executive director, Mapule Ncanywa.<\/p>\n South Africa sugar tax could have its first casualty: Coca-Cola<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n South Africa sugar tax will cost 60,000 jobs<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n Why a sugar tax on beverages won\u2019t tackle obesity in South Africa<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\nMore on a sugar tax<\/h3>\n