Tag: Africa

  • Deloitte Fined for Audit of Malawi Leaf Company

    Deloitte Fined for Audit of Malawi Leaf Company

    The Institute of Chartered Accountants in Malawi (ICAM) has fined Deloitte Malawi after finding the auditing firm guilty in cases involving its audits of Malawi Leaf Company.

    ICAM conducted investigations through the Ethics and Investigations Committee and convened disciplinary hearings through the Disciplinary Committee on cases of its members, according to Malawi24.

    In one case, ICAM says Deloitte did not give due diligence to the procedures in auditing Malawi Leaf Company (MLC) , a subsidiary of Auction Holdings Limited. Deloitte assured that AHL Group had complied with the applicable International Financial Reporting Standards.

    The company was found guilty for this and the ICAM council has imposed on Deloitte a maximum penalty of a severe reprimand and a fine of 1.5 million Kwacha.

    Between 2014 and 2016, ICAM says Deloitte did not give due diligence to the procedures in auditing and assured financial statements for the years in question that had errors and misstatements because they included fictitious sales made to Eastern Tobacco Company for $1.2 million.

    The company was found guilty for this and the council has imposed on Deloitte a maximum penalty of severe reprimand and a fine of 1.5 million Kwacha.

    However, Deloitte was found not guilty on a third charge related to overvaluing stocks in financial statements for 2014, 2015 and 2016.

  • Kenya Plans to Raise Taxes on Vaping

    Kenya Plans to Raise Taxes on Vaping

    Credit: Vector Shop

    Kenya’s Treasury Cabinet Secretary, Ukur Yatani, has proposed to change the excise tax on liquid nicotine to Sh70 ($0.60 cents) per milliliter in a bid to make it less accessible to users, including school children and the youth.

    Vaping industry advocates warn the new proposals to raise excise tax on nicotine products will push safer alternatives for smokers out of reach and help the black market thrive, according to The Standard.

    Campaign for Safer Alternatives (Casa), a lobby that aims for smoke-free environments in Africa, said the tax changes would result in higher prices of e-cigarettes and negatively impacting those who rely on them to help them stay off cigarettes.

    “Doubling the tax on vapes and nicotine pouches is the opposite of a cash cow. If anything, it will drain more money from the Treasury by forcing vapers into the black market,” said Casa chairman Joseph Magero on the proposals contained in the Finance Bill.

    “Already, Kenya’s sky-high vaping taxes have created a thriving black market for vape products, with many shops selling un-taxed vapes in broad daylight.”

    He said the tax increase will also raise the healthcare costs for Kenya’s government by leaving vapers with no choice but to revert to smoking or using unregulated black market vapes.

  • Tobacco Mogul Cleared From Extremism Report

    Tobacco Mogul Cleared From Extremism Report

    Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa (Photo: Pan African Tobacco Group)

    Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa, an industrialist with ties to the tobacco industry, has welcomed the removal of his name from a report linking him to extremism and illicit trade in Africa.

    The April 2021 report, “An Unholy Alliance: Links Between Extremism and Illicit Trade in East Africa,” contained references to Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa and his PTG group of companies.

    Through his legal counsel, Ayabatwa made representations to the legal counsel for the report’s author, Sir Ivor Roberts, as to Ayabatwa’s history as a Pan-African industrialist and philanthropist operating across Africa and the United Arab Emirates. All references to Ayabatwa in the Roberts’ report have now been removed.

    Ayabatwa welcomes this development and is happy to put this matter behind him.

    “Regrettably, due to the complexity in the persisting instability and conflict in eastern and central Africa, it is nearly impossible for foreign researchers and analysts to fully grasp positive and negative actors in the region,” said Senior Advisor David Himbara.

    “In Ayabatwa’s case, for example, his Congo Tobacco Company has been the only manufacturing business operating in the eastern Democratic Republic of Congo for over four decades. The company is one of the few providers of legitimate employment opportunities in a region devastated by instability and war. It is therefore ironic that Ayabatwa was lumped together with illicit trade and extremism in the Unholy Alliance: Links Between Extremism and Illicit Trade in East Africa report penned by Sir Roberts. “

    Tribert Rujugiro Ayabatwa is the founder and controlling shareholder of the Pan African Tobacco Group, Africa’s largest indigenous manufacturer of tobacco products. The company, which in 2018 celebrated its 40th year of operations, manufactures cigarettes in Angola, Burundi, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and the United Arab Emirates.

    Ayabatwa is also one of Africa’s leading philanthropists, according to a press release put out by him. He has invested in education, food security, afforestation and water-access. Through his non-profit foundation, Ayabatwa strives to help young people to gain the practical engineering experience required to enter the job market in Africa. More recently, Ayabatwa assisted governments in the battle against the Covid19 pandemic by contributing medical equipment and foodstuffs during the lockdowns.

    Tobacco Reporter profiled the Pan African Tobacco Group in August 2013.

  • Tobacco Cultivation up in Africa, Down Globally

    Tobacco Cultivation up in Africa, Down Globally

    Photo: Taco Tuinstra

    Even as tobacco cultivation declined globally, it increased in Africa, reports Down to Earth, citing a study by the World Health Organization (WHO).

    Worldwide, the area under tobacco cultivation decreased by 15.66 percent between 2012 and 2018—but in Africa, it increased 3.40 percent during the same period. Leaf production decreased globally by 13.9 percent between 2012 and 2018; in Africa, however, it increased by 10.6 percent. In 2018, global tobacco leaf production was 6.3 million tons; in Africa, it was 722,187 tons, representing 11.4 percent of global production.

    In 1995, there were only two major tobacco leaf growing countries in Africa—Malawi and Zimbabwe. Over the past two decades, other African nations have substantially increased their production of tobacco leaves.

    Today, the main tobacco leaf growing countries in Africa are Zimbabwe (25.9 percent of Africa’s output), Zambia (16.4 percent), Tanzania (14.4 percent), Malawi (13.3 percent) and Mozambique (12.9 percent).

    Many African governments view tobacco farming as a tool to alleviate poverty. From 2012 to 2018, the value of tobacco leaf exports from Africa increased by 10.51 percent to $2.08 billion.

    African countries thus showed a favorable trade balance of approximately $1.26 billion in 2018. Two main tobacco leaf exporters in Africa in 2018 were Zimbabwe (40.61 percent) and Malawi (25.27 percent).

    The WHO maintains that tobacco farming has many negative consequences on the health and well-being of farmers as well as for the environment and the long-term well-being of the countries concerned. The health body believes domestic leaf cultivation also boosts local cigarette consumption.

    The number of tobacco users in the WHO African Region increased to 73 million in 2018 from 64 million adult users in 2000. This increase contrasted with a decline in the number of tobacco users globally to 1.34 billion from 1.4 billion over the same period.

  • Looking for change

    Looking for change

    Knowledge∙Action∙Change (KAC), a private sector public health agency based in the UK, has called for action to prevent the dramatic rises in smoking rates in Africa that have been predicted by the World Health Organization.

    In a note issued through PRNewswire, KAC said that while globally smoking rates were decreasing, in many lower- and middle-income countries, African nations among them, rates were increasing. WHO data showed a steep rise in smoking in many African countries, with many five-year projected increases at five percent and more.

    With this in mind, public health experts from KAC had this week visited Lilongwe, Malawi, and Nairobi, Kenya, to launch No Fire, No Smoke – The Global State of Tobacco Harm Reduction 2018 (GSTHR), ‘a landmark report on the worldwide availability, regulation, and use of lower-risk alternatives to tobacco, such as e-cigarettes (vapes), heat-not-burn devices, and Swedish snus (pasteurized oral tobacco)’.

    ‘A proven public health strategy, harm reduction refers to policies, regulations, and actions that reduce health risks by providing safer forms of hazardous products or encouraging less risky behaviors, rather than simply banning them,’ the note said.

    ‘Independent evidence from the UK Government’s leading public health body demonstrated recently that vaping is at least 95 percent safer than smoking tobacco. Yet despite the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) of 2003 citing harm reduction as one of its main tactics, the WHO has been persistently negative about e-cigarettes, has called for their ban or strict regulation, and sees them as a threat, rather than as a public health opportunity.

    ‘Partnering with the information dissemination project, Tobacco Harm Reduction Malawi, and the newly launched Campaign for Safer Alternatives based in Kenya, the GSTHR report’s publishers presented global findings on tobacco harm reduction, showing that many smokers have switched to safer products and dramatically reduced the risks associated with smoking.’

    “We need to halt the dramatic rises in smoking rates in Africa which are predicted by WHO,” Professor Gerry Stimson, director of KAC and Emeritus Professor at Imperial College London, was quoted as saying. “Most smokers want to quit smoking, but they find it hard to stop using nicotine. Around the world, millions of lives depend on both consumer and government acceptance of safer alternatives to smoking.”

    Meanwhile, Chimwemwe Ngoma, project manager, Tobacco Harm Reduction Malawi and holder of a Global Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship, said that Tobacco Harm Reduction Malawi believed that all citizens of Malawi should be informed of the health consequences, addictive nature, and mortal threat posed by tobacco consumption and exposure to tobacco smoke. “Malawians should be able to make more informed public and personal choices, including having access to safer nicotine products, to enable them to live longer and healthier lives,” he said.

    And Joseph Magero, chair of the Campaign for Safer Alternatives and holder of a Global Tobacco Harm Reduction Scholarship, said society’s relationship with tobacco and nicotine was changing due to technical developments in vaping devices and other safer nicotine products. “The Campaign for Safer Alternatives has formally launched this week to ensure more people across East Africa receive accurate information on alternatives to smoking,” he said. “By arming people with information, we can finally begin to curb the tobacco epidemic.”

  • Accusations out of Africa

    Accusations out of Africa

    Wealthy Western states need to put Big Tobacco in its place and prove to the developing world that they can tame the cigarette industry through concerted, unified action, according to a story by Michael Wilcox at africatimes.com.
    Writing ahead of the eighth biannual summit in Geneva of the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), Wilcox said it was crucial that the signatories to the FCTC stood firm.
    As the tobacco industry tried to foist modern-day colonialism on Africa and Asia, it was urgent that the old colonial powers came to their aid.
    Wilcox started his piece by saying that, since the first American explorers brought tobacco back to Europe at the turn of the 16th century, smoking had always been a first-world problem. ‘The product may have been grown by slaves in the Americas, or farmers in Africa and Asia, but it was always marketed to a wealthy Euro-American audience,’ he said.
    ‘Yet now Big Tobacco is shifting focus, driven by declining smoking rates in its core markets. New research shows the industry is ramping up production in Africa, attempting to exploit its growing wealth and lax tobacco regulation.
    ‘This is just the latest evidence of manufacturers’ growing infatuation with the developing world, where smoking is, worryingly, already on the rise.
    ‘Now it’s time for the global community to take action, before the industry gets an iron grip.’

  • Smoking on the up in Africa

    Smoking on the up in Africa

    While the increasing demand for cigarettes in Africa seems to be driven primarily by population growth, many countries on the continent are reporting increased smoking rates, according to a News24 story citing the findings of a study by the University of Cape Town’s Economics of Tobacco Control Project (ETCP).
    The University said in a statement that demand was being driven too by increasing incomes.
    ‘Consumers in Africa are now able to afford cigarettes and coupled with weak tobacco control laws, this has resulted in the tobacco industry focusing its attention on increasing its market presence,’ the university said.
    The study, Trends in cigarette demand and supply in Africa, says that Africa has become a ‘prime target’ for the tobacco industry.
    The study examined cigarette consumption in 22 countries that account for 80 percent of the continent’s population and found that between 1990 and 2012, cigarette consumption increased from 165.6 billion to 238.5 billion: 44 percent.
    “This upward trend in consumption continues today,” Nicole Vellios, researcher at the ETCP and co-author of the study, was quoted as saying.
    Meanwhile, the report said that cigarette production had increased in the 22 countries by 106 percent during the same period as Africa had moved from being a net importer to a net exporter of cigarettes.
    At the same time, cigarette production had become more concentrated as the tobacco industry had identified certain countries as its main production hubs: South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria, Egypt and Algeria.
    The researchers said they had had to rely on commercial data due to the lack of official statistics; and they concluded that African governments needed to collect and report reliable production, sales and trade data.
    ‘This could be achieved by improving surveillance systems with the help of new technologies,’ they concluded.
    ‘To avoid further increases in consumption, African governments should implement and enforce policies such as higher excise taxes, advertising bans, smoke-free areas and warning labels as outlined by the World Health Organization’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control.’

  • PMI spreading the word

    PMI spreading the word

    Philip Morris International says it is taking to the Middle East and Africa its call to the creative, media and communications communities to go smoke-free.
    ‘We started our push at the Cannes Festival of Creativity, where we asked creative agencies to join PMI in making the world smoke-free’, the company said in a press note posted on its website. ‘We are continuing our efforts to find partners with a presence at the Middle East and Africa’s biggest gathering of creative agencies, the Loeries Creative Week.
    ‘Our lounge at the event is an interactive educational area raising awareness on the role that science, innovation, and technology can play for people who smoke, and informing on PMI’s efforts to replace cigarettes with less harmful alternatives.’
    PMI reported that a number of agencies had signed up already, including the first group in Africa, Publicis Groupe Africa.
    ‘We are asking creative agencies from the Middle East and Africa to join their peers in going smoke-free,’ the note said. ‘To help them understand our commitment, PMI will provide education on the fact that quitting tobacco and nicotine remains the best option for those who smoke, but that for those smokers who would continue, a range of smoke-free alternatives now exist.’
    “There is a large opportunity in the Middle East and Africa to leverage innovation and science for those who smoke and the people around them,” said senior vice president global communications Marian Salzman. “We’re asking the creative community based in the region and elsewhere to join us in raising awareness around this important initiative.”
    Meanwhile, Drago Azinovic, president of PMI’s Middle East, Africa, and Duty-Free operations, said the company’s vision for the world and for the Middle East and Africa is for all people who would otherwise continue to smoke to switch instead to less harmful alternatives. “Joining forces with the creative community in the region can help make this important objective happen faster,” Azinovic said.
    The CEO of Publicis Groupe Africa, John Dixon, said his company was proud to be the first agency network in Africa to commit to a smoke-free future and was aligned with PMI’s bold ambition of a smoke-free world. “Our 14 agencies across two regions will support the cause,” he said.
    Agencies that are interested in taking part should contact Marian Salzman at marian.salzman@pmi.com.

  • Ghana decries singles sales

    Ghana decries singles sales

    The Vision for Alternative Development (VALD), a non-governmental organization has called on Ghana’s Ministry of Health (MoH) and the Food and Drugs Authority (FDA) to ban the sale of single cigarettes with immediate effect, according to a Ghana News Agency story.
    It reportedly said that the sale of single cigarettes had encouraged young people to smoke, and that smoking was destroying their lives through disease.
    Labram Musah, the programs director of VALD, made the call for the ban at a news conference in Accra held to highlight the results of the survey conducted by VALD in collaboration with the Africa Tobacco Control Alliance (ATCA) in 10 capital cities of Africa: Sale of Single Stick of Cigarette to Kids.
    The survey was conducted also in Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Cote d’Ivoire, Kenya, Niger, Nigeria, Togo and Uganda.
    Musah said the sale of single cigarettes was problematic because it made smoking more affordable to young people and others with limited resources.
    “Single stick cigarette sale facilitates experimentation among the youth who have not yet become regular smokers,” he said. “This is one of the major reasons the tobacco industry vehemently opposes sale of cigarettes in a pack of 20 sticks.”
    Meanwhile, Musah urged the MoH and FDA and all relevant authorities to monitor British America Tobacco and Philip Morris International to prevent them from supplying free promotional materials to tobacco retailers in order to create recognition of their brands and encourage the sale of their products.
    He said the authorities should enforce the ban on all forms of tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship, and that this should include any promotional materials related to single sticks.
    And he urged the authorities to ensure that cigarettes were not sold close to educational institutions, hospitals, children’s playgrounds and places where children are cared for.

  • Tobacco’s ‘dirty war’

    Tobacco’s ‘dirty war’

    British American Tobacco and other multinational tobacco firms have threatened governments in at least eight countries in Africa demanding they axe or dilute the kind of protections that have saved millions of lives in the west, according to a story by Sarah Boseley for The Guardian.

    The story, Threats, bullying, lawsuits: tobacco industry’s dirty war for the African market, is the first instalment in a series of reports that the UK-based newspaper is due to run under the heading, Tobacco: a deadly business.

    Boseley said that BAT was fighting through the courts to try to block the Kenyan and Ugandan governments’ attempts to bring in regulations to limit the harm caused by smoking.

    The company hoped to boost its markets in Africa, which had a fast-growing young and increasingly prosperous population.

    ‘In one undisclosed court document in Kenya, seen by the Guardian, BAT’s lawyers demand the country’s high court “quash in its entirety” a package of anti-smoking regulations and rails against what it calls a “capricious” tax plan, Boseley said. ‘The case is now before the supreme court after BAT Kenya lost in the high court and the appeal court. A ruling is expected as early as next month.

    ‘BAT in Uganda asserts in another document that the government’s Tobacco Control Act is “inconsistent with and in contravention of the constitution”.

    ‘The Guardian has also seen letters, including three by BAT, sent to the governments of Uganda, Namibia, Togo, Gabon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia and Burkina Faso revealing the intimidatory tactics that tobacco companies are using, accusing governments of breaching their own laws and international trade agreements and warning of damage to the economy.

    ‘BAT denies it is opposed to all tobacco regulation, but says it reserves the right to ask the courts to intervene where it believes regulations may not comply with the law.’

    Meanwhile, The Guardian said that its series of tobacco reports was focused on the damage caused by the tobacco industry, which continued to endanger the lives of millions of the world’s most vulnerable people

    ‘This content is funded by support provided, in part, by Vital Strategies with funding by Bloomberg Philanthropies,’ the newspaper said. ‘Content is editorially independent and its purpose is to shine a light on both the tobacco industry and the world’s most vulnerable populations, who disproportionately bear the brunt of the global health crisis resulting from tobacco consumption.

    ‘Although tobacco consumption remains one of the world’s greatest health threats, media coverage has decreased as the sense of urgency to address the issue has waned. This investigative reporting series seeks to renew the focus on tobacco consumption and deaths worldwide, contextualised through the duel [sic] lenses of global inequality and health.

    ‘All our journalism follows GNM’s published editorial code. The Guardian is committed to open journalism, recognising that the best understanding of the world is achieved when we collaborate, share knowledge, encourage debate, welcome challenge and harness the expertise of specialists and their communities.

    Unless otherwise stated, all statements and materials posted on the website, including any statements regarding specific legislation, reflect the views of the individual contributors and not those of Vital Strategies and/or Bloomberg Philanthropies.’

    Boseley’s piece is at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jul/12/big-tobacco-dirty-war-africa-market.