Tax justice SA demands cigarette ban be lifted

While the South African Police Service has been proudly patting themselves on the back for successfully confiscating cigarettes across the country during the lockdown period, they have been faced with criticism from all sectors of society.

Among their most vocal critics is civil society organisation Tax Justice South Africa (TJSA) who issued a statement on Tuesday stating that “the lockdown ban on cigarettes is backfiring badly and endangering [the] millions of South Africans it is supposed to protect”.

As a result, the organisation has called for an urgent lifting of the ban, according to its founder Yusuf Abramjee.

“The ban is dangerous in so many ways: it is encouraging movement, encouraging looting, impoverishing people who are paying sky-high prices and impoverishing the country when it needs the money most.

“All this is occurring when the only stated objective is to limit the movement of people.”

Abramjee also believes that the country’s 11 million smokers could potentially be spreading Covid-19 unnecessarily as they are forced to travel in search of the cigarettes they can’t buy in the stores they normally visit to stock up on food.

TJSA estimates that the nation is losing more than R35 million in excise duties on cigarettes alone but did not disclose the period of time over which this amount was lost.

“Money that is desperately needed by government to fight this crisis. Instead, that money is going to criminals who are charging inflated prices on the black market and exploiting the most vulnerable.”

Abramjee cited the police’s reports of increased incidents of looting, as well as all the presence of illicit cigarette stashes, as evidence that the ban was not working.

“The argument for banning alcohol is that the public’s consumption makes it harder for police to do their job – although the looting highlights other problems. But the same argument cannot be made about cigarettes. In fact, depriving smokers of cigarettes can increase tensions and the tobacco ban will only make it harder for police to do their job.”

“This lockdown is vital, but must be reasonable to be effective. All the evidence so far is that the cigarette ban should be relaxed,” he added.

While Abramjee and TJSA are lobbying for the ban to be lifted, others are calling on the SAPS to shift their focus to more serious crimes.

(Please note, the following tweets contain strong language. The tweets are merely for illustrative purposes and do not reflect the views of the Citizen)

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