Illicit tobacco trade costs URA Shs600 million

To face arrest. A man lights a smokes. Mukono District leadership and police have embarked on a joint campaign to enforce the Tobacco Control Act. PHOTO BY File photo

Kampala- Uganda Revenue Authority is losing millions of tax revenue to illicit tobacco trade.

URA figures show that the country seized 13 million sticks of tobacco valued at Shs616 million ($203,337) in 2009/10 and the same amount was seized in 2013/14.

This illicit trade, according to Mr Armstrong Turyakira, the URA customs official, has forced URA to initiate a reward of 10 per cent of any seized tobacco products to whoever leaks information leading to any seizures.

“People [who leak information] have built houses from this reward. And this trade leads to a lot of counterfeits on the market, which can be prevented,” Mr Turyakira said recently.

Counterfeit or genuine, tobacco products cause health problems to both smokers and non-smokers. For example, World Health Organisation (WHO) says tobacco smoking causes cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, heart diseases, lung, throat and other cancers, which kill six million people a year.

Of the six million deaths, five million are direct smokers while an estimated 600,000 die from exposure to second-hand smoking globally.

Impact
The illicit trade in tobacco also results in cheaper products, which means increased tobacco consumption and more health problems.

Locally, according to Dr Ruth Acen, the Director General Health Services, 36 people die daily in Uganda due to smoking and the country needs a law to regulate its consumption.

“The Health ministry drafted the Tobacco Control Bill and and strategic plan. However, the implementation of the two depends a lot on the passing of the Bill,” Dr Acen said at the health ministry headquarters in Kampala.

Tobacco Control Bill
Dr Sheila Ndyanabangi, a tobacco control focal person at the Health ministry, said the law is long overdue.

Dr Alemu Wondimagegnehu, the WHO representative in Uganda, said stopping illicit tobacco trade should be looked at as averting tobacco-related diseases, revenue losses to governments as well as possible revenue to criminal gangs, who trade in tobacco.

Dr Possy Mugyenyi, an official from Centre for Tobacco Control, called for higher taxes imposed on tobacco cigarettes to make it expensive for smokers.
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