IFP PRESS STATEMENT BY: 
DR RUTH RABINOWITZ  MP 
IFP HEALTH SPOKESPERSON

22nd May 2008

If Parliament ever appeared circus like and if members of the public and parliament felt frustrated by the futility of words, the Tobacco Products Amendment Bill must serve as a shameful example of the sham. 

Approved by Cabinet on 22/3/2006, it was intended to tighten up loopholes exploited by the tobacco industry to boost sales of its products, after the initial anti tobacco legislation was adopted in 1999. It was a department of health law, unusual in the way it united all political parties. Smoking does no one any good and why have laws if they are full of loopholes.   

But now two years later, following members having devoted 16 days to the amendments, and 46 hours to public hearings, the committee is about to shelve the amendments owing to an about face in the ANC.  

The change of heart is spurred by several factors. One is the persistence of a tobacco lobby for which any amount of expenditure is worth the outcome of a dead bill. Hence their repeated threats to take the legislation to court. 

The other is the split within the ANC. The hon Minster of Health has clearly lost her hold and it is a new experience for opposition members to be promoting the Executive to a committee determined to obstruct its goals. 

Ironically, the department was the source of its own undoing since it introduced the amendments as two bills. The one, affecting tobacco content, was adopted in March 2007, but has not been implemented, because the other, dealing now with sale of products, is related. Scrapping this one means scrapping all the amendments indefinitely, probably until a new parliament is elected. 

The tobacco industry has lots of time and money to play this game again and again and MP's seem to find talking sufficient of itself. 

Should we be surprised when a frustrated public takes the law into its own hands?