Letter to the National Treasury: Comments on tobacco excise taxes and the illicit cigarette trade

As an independent research unit with a public health focus, REEP sent a letter to the National Treasury on 31 August 2022, commenting on the tobacco landscape in South Africa, and asking for an opportunity to address the National Treasury at the public workshops on 8 September 2022.

Professor Corné van Walbeek, Director of REEP, comments in the document that there have been some disturbing changes in the tobacco landscape in the past decade.

While the aim of the tobacco sales ban in 2020 was to substantially reduce cigarette consumption, this has unfortunately not happened. According to the Global Adult Tobacco Survey, which was conducted in 2021, the prevalence of daily cigarette use has increased to more than 20%. This is a reversal of a trend where smoking prevalence has been decreasing slowly for the better part of three decades.

Using a gap analysis, colleagues in REEP estimated that the illicit market comprised between 30% and 35% in 2017. They have updated the gap analysis to 2021, and found that the illicit market shrunk slightly in 2018, but increased to at least 54% in 2020, and has remained at that extremely high level in 2021. The illicit market has become more entrenched following the sales ban.

To read the letter in full, please click here.

To read the letter sent on the 1st March 2021 to the Standing and Select Committees of Finance in Parliament, please click here.