That the tobacco industry has consistently and historically used campaign of contribution to our economy to harass our government is not a hidden truth.
What is hidden is the fact that the government of Nigeria in the past has failed to listen to the real truth about an industry that quietly kills Nigerians with four thousand chemical compositions deliberately put into the cigarette to serve the shareholders interest of profit over loss.
It is out of the ordinary to know that the British American Tobacco appeared before the ongoing sitting of Presidential Review Committee on Waivers, Concessions and Incentives to again harass our government with its usual slogan of contribution to our economy in order to get tax waiver.
BAT claims that it’s one of the largest employers of labour and that it contributes about N30 billion to Nigeria economy. The company unreservedly suggested to the Nigerian government through the sitting committee that “the Nigerian government should have plausible review that would benefit the company including other policies of the government (tobacco regulations)”.
While that goes on BAT rolled out its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Campaign to further the harassment. The industry has harassed local, state and national tobacco control programmes through the use of ruse CSR campaigns.
There are serious questions about the social implications of the appropriation of CSR by tobacco corporations. The obvious truth behind BAT’s CSR is that the efforts were aimed not at achieving social objectives, but at achieving the tobacco industry objective of operating in an unregulated environment.
At a very common-sense level, CSR cannot be expected to work with respect to tobacco. It would be quite naïve to expect tobacco corporations to help achieve social goals at the expense of profit; and it would be unlawful for their directors to allow them to do so.
Tobacco corporations have the power to undertake one CSR measure that- far above and beyond all others- would have a hugely positive impact on society. They could simply stop selling tobacco. Undoubtedly no tobacco corporation has proposed this, and this in itself indicates the futility of CSR by BAT and the rest of the tobacco corporation.
A current (2007) survey by the Lagos State Government is indicative of the health and economic costs tobacco currently inflicts on the country. According to the survey, in 2006 alone over 9,527 tobacco-related cases were recorded in hospitals run by the state government. Besides, another survey of 26 hospitals run by the state government revealed that two persons die per day to tobacco- related diseases. The state government also estimates that it spend N216, 000 on each case of tobacco- related ailment while the individual spends additional N70, 000.
Another survey by the Federal Ministry of health between 1990-91 showed that 4.14 million (10%) Nigerians over the age of 15years smoke and that 1.26 million are heavy smokers (smoke more than ten cigarettes a day). That figure has jumped to 17.1 per cent in 1998. In 1994 the smoking rate among youths was 4.4%. By 2001 the smoking rate for youths of between 13 and 15 years has jumped to 18.1.5.
A projection is that the annual costs of healthcare for smoking-related disease will grow to absorb a larger percentage of gross domestic products (GDP) than today.
For policymakers, it is vital to know these annual healthcare costs and the fraction borne by the public sector, because they represent real resources that can be used to judge the claims of BAT falsehood to have contributed to Nigeria’s economy.
Therefore the plausible thing to do by the government is to rather make tobacco companies accountable for the harms caused by tobacco use and not in any way give tax waivers. The government all over the world are imposing heavy tax on tobacco to minimize the addiction, why should Nigeria government fold its hand to allow tobacco industry cause more harm to our health?
Researches point to the fact that taxing tobacco companies makes for price increase of tobacco products and price increases encourage some people to stop smoking, that they prevent others from starting in the first place, and that they reduce the number of ex-smokers who resume the habit.
For example, tax increases in Canada between 1982 and 1992 led to a steep increase in the real price of cigarettes, and consumption fell substantially. Similarly, higher taxes have reduced cigarette consumption in South Africa, The United Kingdom and a host of other countries.
The World Health Organization, (WHO), World Bank and public health experts have identified a combination of the following as having a measurable and sustained impact on tobacco use, increase excise taxes, bans on tobacco advertising, sponsorships and marketing, controls on smoking in public places and workplaces, expanded access to effective means of quitting, tough counteradvertising, tight controls on smuggling. These must all be implemented if the predicted expansion of the epidemic is to be prevented in Nigeria.
Indeed, banning smoking in public places is a sound public health measure to protect the health of non smokers. The issue of workplace bans is primarily one of labour legislation to protect the health of workers who are exposed to passive smoking for long periods during their work shifts, whether this is in public or office buildings, restaurants or office building.
The strongest reason for governments to intervene is to deter children and adolescents from smoking, given the compound problem of their inadequate access to information about tobacco, their risk of becoming addicted, and their limited ability to make sound decisions.
Government also has a justification for intervening to prevent smokers from imposing direct physical costs on non-smokers.
The Federal government must take into account that Nigeria signed the FCTC on June 20, 2004 and ratified the convention on October 20, 2005 and given tax waiver to any tobacco industry will run contrary to the observation of the rules of the treaty to which its signatory.
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