HEALTH-MALAWI: Lobbyists Smile As Anti-Smoking Treaty Starts To Bite

By IPS Correspondents Reprint | | Print |

Frank Piri

BLANTYRE , Apr 9 2003 (IPS) - As next months ratification of the World Health Organisation’s Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) treaty begins to gather momentum, anti-smoking lobbyists in Malawi have already started to celebrate victory.

On April 3, British American Tobacco BAT (Malawi) announced that it was ending a nearly two decade-long romance with Malawian football by pulling out sponsorship. BAT pulled out their K7.5 million (about 83 000 United States Dollars) sponsorship of ‘Embassy’ cigarettes trophy, which has been evolving since the 1980’s bringing together Malawi’s 10 top league sides and pumping money into the country’s fledgling advertising and media companies.

The company said it was coming under pressure from the intense global anti-smoking lobby, which has culminated into next month’s treaty.

"Due to changing expectations from cigarette companies globally, we regret to announce the end of our sponsorship. This is a global decision by a global company in Africa," said BAT Chairman and Managing Director Keith Gretton, whose company withdrew similar sponsorships in Zimbabwe and West Africa.

Consumers Association of Malawi (Cama), a lobby group and member of the Framework Convention Alliance (FCA) – the NGO alliance that contributed to the FCTC draft – instantly welcomed the withdrawal describing it as a victory for the anti smoking lobby in the country.

"BAT has finally acknowledged that the concept of promoting its cigarettes through football which is supposed to be a healthy sport, was flawed from the beginning," said Cama Executive Director John Kapito in Blantyre this week.

He said the fact that BAT, one of the stakeholders at the FCTC discussions, took its time to pull out from sponsoring football, was an indication that it was getting handsome rewards from tobacco which it did not want to part with in a hurry.

But Kapito pointed out that such progressive exposure to BAT’s cigarettes, dating back from the 1980’s when the company first introduced it’s sponsorship, meant that many Malawians smokers were exposed to the risks of tobacco-related diseases.

Initially BAT’s soccer sponsorship came under the banner of the ‘555 State Express’ Championship and subsequently changed to ‘Life Kings’ Trophy and ‘Embassy’, the three cigarette brands it was promoting on the market.

"This withdrawal is good riddance. But we would have loved to see BAT pouring some of it’s money towards treating patients of tobacco-related diseases where it is proved their cigarettes caused such harm," said Kapito.

According to accountants PriceWaterHouse Coopers, the versatile tobacco industry accounts for 70 per cent of Malawi’s export earnings and 30 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP). It has, in the past three decades, also ranked as the second major employer after government.

Against such a background, industry and government have been reluctant to accept the lobby, believing it to be a guillotine on the fragile economy which relies heavily on tobacco’s various revenues.

But realising that the anti-smoking lobby is the inevitable devil to cope with, the stakeholders have recently been putting up a brave face.

"We’re now comfortable with this FCTC version because it does not force us to accept tough restrictions," said Albert Kamulaga, Chairman of the International Tobacco Growers Association (ITGA-African region ) and President of the local growers and processors under Tobacco Association of Malawi (Tama).

The impending limitations are a double blow to the Malawian industry. It has, since the1990’s to date, taken a knock due to flagging sales.

Authorities attribute the industry’s decline to market liberalisation, poor quality as farmers lack proper inputs, and the price-taker syndrome imposed on farmers by multinational buyers at the auction floors.

The low-price syndrome has, in recent years, sparked violent protests by Malawian farmers, who are subjected to shoddy prices as low as US$0.80/kg, for good quality leaf which otherwise would fetch two dollars or one dollar-eighty cents per kilogramme.

Kamulaga said market liberalisation was also ruining the industry because it has brought laxity in the selling system as intermediate buyers (IBs) were getting tobacco and selling it haphazardly across borders, in the process evading taxes and spoiling leaf quality.

"They are just chancers, with no experience of tobacco handling. They end up messing the quality leading to low returns for the country," he said.

And as ministers of member states of the WHO’s World Health Assembly, including Malawi, prepare to fly to Geneva to seal the treaty next month, it is increasingly becoming clear that Malawi’s economy is at stake.(ENDS/IPS/AF/SA/HE/FP/SM/03)

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