Ghana has lot to do in Pricing Tobacco Products - VALD Declares

Vision for Alternative Development (VALD), a non-governmental organisation and the Media Alliance in Tobacco Control have expressed worry over the low pricing of tobacco and its related products in the country.

According to the organizations, the government of Ghana has a lot to do in the pricing of tobacco products, saying that the value of the tobacco products 
are relatively lows which encourages smokers to buy the products to use.

"We strongly propose the adoption of a Specific Tax regime to replace the current Ad-valorem tax regime for tobacco products - the current price at which tobacco is sold is unjustifiably too low even when sold in packs. Cigarette prices in Ghana are as low as GHS 2 per pack of 10 sticks.

"Upgrade capacity and equip officials to enable them to embark on special operations to clamp down on promotional activities veiled under the creative arts industry, using musical lyrics, movies, musical videos, stagecraft, and others on mass platforms like social media and television to advance industry publicity, we strongly recommend anti-tobacco messages when scenes of tobacco and alcohol are shown," he stressed.

"We trust that government will adopt this policy documents and recommendations therein to advance efforts in addressing tobacco-related deaths and disabilities as well improving government efforts in developing policies or implementing strictly the existing laws to reduce interaction and industry attempts to derail tobacco control commitment. 

The Executive Director of Programmes at VALD, Mr Labram Musah made this known at the media launch of the Ghana 2021 Tobacco Industry Interference Index Report in Accra on Wednesday, October 6, 2021.

The index report presents findings of the tobacco industry attempts and interference in government efforts to develop tobacco control policies, strengthen measures to control tobacco use and overall implementation of the World Health Organization Control. The WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO FCTC) and its protocols. 

The Ghana report is expected to form part of the Global Tobacco Industry Interference Index aimed at documenting how public health policies are protected from the industry’s subversive efforts, and how the government have pushed back against this influence.

Mr Musah asserted that Ghana improved its rank in the sub-region by 2 scores which means some level of progress was achieved from 58 in 2020 to 56 in 2021. 

He noted that despite this modest improvement, Ghana’s score is still high compared to countries like Uganda (34), Kenya (39), Gabon (48), Nigeria (53), Senegal (54), etc. Zambia (78) and Tanzania (73) has the highest form of TI interference in 2021 

According to him, even though it is mandatory in Ghana that all tobacco products bear health warnings; shisha -a tobacco product mostly smoked by young people has no health warnings on the most purchased and less expensive smaller packs.

He said it, therefore, does not meet the required packaging health warning as prescribed by the FDA. 

"Another is the duty-free arrangements at the country's ports that permit government officials and diplomats to carry tobacco products, without paying any duty. 

"The attitude of the government towards increasing tax on tobacco products, with the excuse of using measures to discourage tax evasion and smuggling is unfortunate" he stated.

According to the Tobacco Atlas, Ghana's excise tax is 16.06% of the retail price, far below the WHO benchmark of a minimum of 70% of the retail price. 

He indicated that the tobacco industry is permitted by law a maximum period of eighteen months (540 days) to implement pictorial health warnings.

He pointed out that the weak capacity of tax and customs agencies to fight the illicit trade of tobacco in Ghana has played to the advantage of the tobacco industry.

Unfortunately, he said many countries in Africa violated the WHOFCTC and their national laws when COVID-19 emerged.

The TI contributed huge sums of money into COVID-19 trust funds instituted by many countries. In Ghana, we did not officially record any of such support. 

On the issue of the unnecessary interactions with the tobacco industry, Mr Musah said the Ghana Revenue Authority (GRA) contracted De La Rue, a Kenyan entity affiliated to a publicly listed UK Group on 9th September 2020 to develop a track and trace system. It was revealed that De La Rue also outsourced the contract to IT giant Atos, a longstanding tobacco industry partner.

He said that the Ghana government entering into the partnership with the tobacco industry clearly showed the lack of transparency in the tender process, and this led to a temporary suspension of the contract by the Public Procurement Authority (PPA) in response to fierce public outcry. 

  Freeman Koryekpor Awlesu Greater Accra Regional Correspondent