[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Date Index][Thread Index]
Big Business Opposes New SA Law (fwd)
S.Africa tobacco bill lights
business, sports fuse
22 July 1998
Web posted at: 13:51 SAT, Johannesburg time (11:51 GMT)
CAPE TOWN, July 22 (Reuters) - South African business and
sport are
smouldering over draft legislation that aims to stub out
tobacco advertising
and smoking in public places.
The draft Tobacco Product Control Amendment Bill, released
for public
comment last week, is aimed at amending existing
legislation to outlaw
smoking in the workplace and all advertising or promotion
of tobacco
products.
"The legislation's main objective is to prevent people,
especially children,
from starting to smoke and to protect non-smokers from the
effects of
tobacco smoke," Dr Gonda Perez, government director of
health promotion,
told Reuters.
Johannes Kgatla, parliamentary officer for the Department
of Health, said
cabinet should approve the draft bill soon.
Around seven million of South Africa's just under 40
million people are
smokers. They are currently lured by lavish advertisments
on billboards, in
cinemas and magazines showing muscled, bronzed youths
surfing, skiing and
white-water rafting before taking a drag on a
well-deserved cigarette.
Business and sports dependent on sponsorship by tobacco
companies say
the proposed ban undermines a constitutional right to
freedom of speech and
could cost thousands of jobs.
"If you look at the legislation as it stands it is
possibly the most extreme the
world has ever seen in taking away the freedom of speech,"
Abrie du
Plessis, public affairs manager for tobacco firm Rothmans
Holdings, told
Reuters.
"Once you ban advertising you kill a lot of jobs and
cigarette makers may
find other ways to compete by cutting prices, so you could
actually increase
consumption," he said.
Rothmans, 50 percent owned by Rothmans International, in
turn 60 percent
owned by industrial and mining conglomerate Rembrandt
Group Ltd and
sister firm Richemont Securities, dominates South Africa's
tobacco market.
Du Plessis said the industry spends a total of around 250
million rand
($40.78 million) annually on print and billboard advertising.
Piet Delport, executive director of the Freedom of
Commercial Speech
Trust, an umbrella organisation for the media, advertising
and marketing
industries, said his group was also concerned about the
draft bill.
"We are worried that it could infringe the freedom of
commercial speech," he
told Reuters. "It is the basic right of people to
advertise and for people to get
information."
Kobus Gous, opposition National Party spokesperson on
health, said the
legislation threatened the loss of thousands of jobs in
tobacco related
industries as well as the marketing and advertising
industries.
Beaulah Schoeman, managing director of Motorsport South
Africa, said her
organisation has already seen a loss of half a million
rand in sponsorship
because of the impending ban.
"It would have a very detrimental affect on motorsport if
it was banned.
Tobacco companies have been very loyal sponsors. it would
affect a whole
lot of sports," she said.
South African rugby and soccer are also very dependent on
tobacco
sponsorship although the cricket team has moved away from
the industry in
recent years.
Schoeman said Sports Minister Steve Tshwete had called a
meeting later
this week with various sports organisations to discuss the
implications of the
draft bill.
But Health Minister Nkososana Zuma, a virulent anti-smoker who
succeeded recently in making South Africa's parliament a
cigarette-free
zone, is unlikely to give much ground.
Since the country's first democratic elections in 1994,
the African National
Congress-led government has increased excise duties on
tobacco products
to 47 percent of the cost of a packet of cigarettes, which
costs around one
U.S. dollar.
Legal tobacco consumption is on the decline, although
Rothmans' du Plessis
says contraband sales have increased to dodge the new
higher taxes. He
estimates legal consumption at around 30 to 40 billion
cigarettes a year.
The European Union has recently agreed a community-wide
ban on tobacco
advertising, but the legislation has run into difficulties
at the national level in
various countries.
($1-6.1290 Rand)
Copyright 1998 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved.
© 1998 Cable News Network, Inc. All Rights
Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided
to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.
Business Day 23 July 1998
Rothmans weighs its
options on bill
Josey Ballenger
ROTHMANS SA, the country's largest tobacco
manufacturer, said yesterday it had not ruled out legal
action against the health department on the grounds that
the contents and the handling of the Tobacco Products
Control Amendment Act was "unconstitutional".
Public affairs manager Abrie du Plessis said the company
was studying the contents of the bill with its legal adviser
and hoped to begin a process of consultation with the
department.
"I am not going to commit myself to a legal challenge, but
there is a possibility, depending on legal advice.
"The bill seems to breach the protection of freedom of
speech in the bill of rights, and the procedure in (its)
drafting - we were in fact excluded - also seems to be
unconstitutional in terms of openness, transparency and
public participation," Du Plessis said.
The bill proposes bans on advertising, sponsorship of
sporting events, smoking in certain public and work
places and restricting cigarette vending machines to areas
where people under 16 do not have access to them.
Meanwhile, the cabinet's social and administrative affairs
committee referred the bill back to the health ministry
yesterday to resolve certain issues before it could be
considered by the full cabinet. A cabinet source said the
bill was unlikely to pass this year, given the lengthy
legislative process.