Parliament, Monday, 27 November 2023 – The Portfolio Committee on Well being has efficiently concluded three public hearings on the Tobacco Merchandise and Digital Supply Techniques Management Invoice in Gauteng with residents of Tshwane Metropolitan Municipality expressing contrasting views on the Invoice.
The committee needs to appropriate misconceptions that it deliberately locked a majority of members of the general public who had been towards the Invoice exterior the venue in Tshwane to forestall them from elevating their objection to the Invoice. The committee has because the begin of those hearings on the Tobacco Merchandise and Digital Supply Techniques Management Invoice promoted public involvement on the Invoice and it ensured the existence of surroundings beneficial for significant public participation.
The venue supplied by the municipality at the moment might accommodate the utmost of solely 250 folks and by the point the session began the venue had reached its full capability. The committee has a dichotomous duty concerning a venue for public hearings. It should make sure the existence of conducive surroundings for significant public participation on the one hand, and it should guarantee the security and safety protocols are adhered to for the security of everybody concerned then again.
Options to the capability problem was to make accessible types for written submissions to everybody to allow written feedback. The committee attaches the identical worth to each oral and written submissions. Secondly, representatives of the teams exterior the venue got a chance to enter and make oral submissions on the Invoice.
It’s thus patently incorrect and regarding that there are these attempting to paddle untruths with the only real intention to malign what has been a good course of. The committee reiterates its dedication to hearken to all views on the Invoice irrespective of various views. In step with this, it’s assured that ample alternative was supplied for each member of the general public to air their views on the Invoice.
Through the hearings, residents who rejected the Invoice based mostly their rejection on the view that the preamble of the Invoice incorrectly labeled nicotine as a poisonous substance. Whereas contributors with this view acknowledged that nicotine is addictive, they referred to as for reclassification of the Invoice to focus on the distinction between digital supply methods and flamable cigarettes.
Small-scale merchants had been additionally important of the Invoice expressing their worry that the passing of the Invoice will criminalise them and their small companies when all they had been attempting to do was to make a residing. They cautioned that the closure of small companies will plunge many households in destitute as they trusted the sale of tobacco merchandise for his or her livelihood.
The adverse impression on South Africa’s tax base was additionally raised as further grounds for his or her rejection of the Invoice. Contributors argued that the implementation of the Invoice will lower the contribution made by the tobacco business to the nation’s fiscus. Additionally they argued that the implementation of the Invoice will allow the illicit cigarettes market to develop. There have been calls for presidency to search out options to the problem of illicit cigarettes.
These towards the Invoice additionally underscored the need of data and urged authorities to deal with educating the general public in regards to the risks of consumption of tobacco merchandise. Additionally, considerations had been raised in regards to the hole in enforcement mechanism to make sure implementation of the Invoice.
These in help of the Invoice argued for the implementation of plain packaging as a result of it is going to guarantee discount of compulsive shopping for of tobacco merchandise. Moreover, they embraced the proposal of getting footage on the packaging to focus on the risks of smoking. They concurred with the proposal for the outright banning of the sale of tobacco merchandise via merchandising machines.
Additionally they emphasised their confidence within the Invoice that it’s going to shield non-smokers towards the risks imposed by second hand smoke inhalation. Having accomplished the Gauteng public hearings at the moment, the committee will resume hearings on the Invoice in KwaZulu-Natal in January subsequent 12 months.
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The Invoice seeks to strengthen public well being safety measures, align South African tobacco management legislation with the World Well being Organisation Framework Conference and repeal the Tobacco Management Act, 1993 (Act No. 83 of 1993). The proposed legislative and coverage adjustments search to introduce the next:
(a) indoor public locations and sure outside areas that can be designated 100 per cent
smoke-free;
(b) a ban on the sale of cigarettes via merchandising machines;
(c) plain packaging with graphic well being warnings and pictorials;
(d) a ban on show at point-of-sale; and
(e) the regulation and management of digital nicotine supply methods and non-nicotine supply methods.
