Covid-19: Tax Justice SA calls on Ramaphosa to lift cigarette ban

Tax Justice South Africa (TJSA) believes the cigarette ban is spreading an epidemic of crime and suffocating the economy.

TJSA has urged the Presidency to announce that the ban will be lifted in the move to level three.

“In its efforts to fight the health pandemic the government has imposed an indefensible prohibition that has spawned a national epidemic of crime” TJSA founder Yusuf Abramjee stated in a statement issued to the media.

“Illegal trade is booming as the cigarette ban enriches criminals exploiting desperate smokers, impoverishes struggling families driven to pay sky-high prices and loots state coffers that are losing R35-million a day in taxes,” said Abramjee.

“Economists and scientists say the ban serves no purpose in the fight to combat Covid-19,” he said.

“Instead, it is driving South Africa’s 11 million smokers to break the law and even turning schoolchildren into illegal dealers.

“It is suffocating our comatose economy when it urgently needs an injection of money to fight the virus, protect the vulnerable and feed the poor,” said Abramjee.

TJSA added that the ban is entrenching criminal networks that will be hard to remove after the health crisis, the researchers concluded.

“The government has received a petition signed by more than half a million people calling for the ban to be lifted, as well as a submission from two million informal traders who accuse ministers of robbing them of their livelihoods and diverting the money to criminals,” said Abramjee.

“This national sentiment of disapproval far outweighs the 2 000 messages Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma cited as the reason for extending the ban.

“For 57 days of the world’s most draconian lockdown, desperate smokers have been forced to go ‘cold turkey’ without any support or rational explanation,” said Abramjee.

“To feed their addiction, they have been driven to travel more widely and make contact with more people, the very opposite of the lockdown’s sole stated objective. The sole beneficiaries are the criminals in the illicit trade who should be starved of the lucrative lifeblood supplied by the lockdown.”

TJSA urged President Cyril Ramaphosa to lift the ban in level three.

“The road map for easing lockdown suggests that the liquor ban will also be lifted in level three, which will help reduce illegal trade in alcohol and generate vital taxes.

“But bottle stores and other retail outlets should put in very organised and orderly systems because citizens, fearing that sales may only be temporary, will rush in huge numbers to the places of sale,” said Abramjee.

Minister Cele: We have also observed an increase in smuggling of contraband (liquor and tobacco) between South Africa’s land borders with Botswana, eSwatini, Lesotho, Mozambique and Zimbabwe, as well as the sale of these products in the black market #level4lockdown

— GCIS Media Liaison (@GCISMedia) May 22, 2020

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