The Department of Health has finished revising its proposed tougher anti-smoking legislation — and has not backed down on the massive fines lawbreakers will face.
Departmental spokesperson Sibani Mngadi said the Bill has been cleared by the department’s legal unit and will be submitted to Cabinet for approval early next year.
Originally published for comment in the Government Gazette in October 2003, the Bill has been with the department since then.
It seeks to raise the fine for smoking in a public place from R200 to R2 000, and up to R100 000 for repeat offenders, and the fine for advertising tobacco products from R200 000 to a maximum of R900 000.
It also proposes health warnings featuring graphic pictures on tobacco products to stop tobacco companies describing cigarettes as ”light” or ”mild”, and to raise the minimum age for sales from 16 to 18.
The existing Tobacco Products Control Act, passed in 1993 and given teeth in 1999, was widely regarded as some of the toughest anti-tobacco legislation in the world.
However, according to the department it contains ”uncertainties that make enforcement difficult”.
A loophole in the Act — a difficulty with wording — has left prosecutors unwilling to prosecute people for smoking in a public place.
Another has allowed tobacco companies to advertise at point of sale. The department had intended there be only a notice that cigarettes were available.
The department’s director for health promotion, Zanele Mthembu, said there are no major differences between the 2003 Bill and the revised version.
”The amount for fines originally proposed will stay the same,” she said.
Mthembu told Parliament’s health portfolio committee in September last year that the Bill had been revised in the light of comments received.
Asked this week why the Bill was not yet at Parliament, she said the department’s tobacco-control team had been ”consulting and doing some references”.
”The department is taking the amendments seriously.
”The delay in the finalisation of the law is due to the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control that was ratified by the South African Parliament in April 2005, and the Bill could not be processed further before this process took over.”
The delay was also because of the many Bills the department and Parliament have to deal with.
Mthembu could not say whether there would be public hearings on the Bill when it reaches Parliament. — Sapa