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Budget under fire for offer to CTC
View(s):By Kumudini Hettiarachchi
The Government has committed a major faux pas in its fight against tobacco and alcohol consumption by seeking sponsorship from the Ceylon Tobacco Company, as per a proposal in Budget 2017. Finance Minister Ravi Karunanayake’s request for “the Ceylon Tobacco Company to donate Rs. 500 million to the Presidential Fund to be utilised by the Presidential Task Force for the anti-smoking campaign” is in direct violation of Article 13 of the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). Sri Lanka is one of the key signatories to this convention.
Health sector experts said it was contrary to President Maithripala Sirisena’s pronouncements in Sri Lanka and on the international arena on the devious ways the tobacco industry uses to get involved in policy issues.
The guidelines for implementation of Article 13 of the WHO FCTC call for the rejection of “partnerships and non-binding or non-enforceable agreements with the tobacco industry”. They state that the “tobacco industry should not be a partner in an initiative linked to setting up or implementing public health policies given that its interests are in direct conflict with the goals on public health policy.”
In fact, the President delivering the keynote address at the Seventh Session of the Conference of Parties to the WHO FCTC held in Noida, India, on November 7 said, “We know that the industry will try to influence policymakers in many ways, often support petitioners to challenge government legislation and persuade the mass media.”
“This, to me, is a direct interference in the internal policy matters of any country. We need not have any compromise of any kind with the tobacco industry,” the President is quoted as saying in comments at the conference posted on his own website. See http://www.president.gov.lk/resist-the-attempts-of-the-tobacco-industry-to-undermine-tobacco-control-president-urges-the-world.
A health sector expert said the offer to the Ceylon Tobacco Company to sponsor a health policy-related campaign — even if it is to do with anti-smoking — is a blatant contradiction of the Government’s own position and furthermore the President’s fervent appeal to prevent devious ways in which the tobacco lobby tries to influence health policy formulation. On the other hand, the Ceylon Tobacco Company will ‘gladly’ accept the offer to get involved in a partnership with the state, he said.