The FF Plus firmly maintains its stance that the consultation processes followed with the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill of 2022 were inadequate, and that the law’s processing should not continue.
This Bill is currently being considered by the parliamentary Portfolio Committee on Health.
It has already come to light that the Department of Health was dishonest about the prescribed processes that were followed with public consultations and now the Committee is trying to cover up internal dissension about it.
After the Department had told the Committee that the processes were duly followed and that Nedlac had indeed been consulted, Nedlac denied it in the media.
That is why the FF Plus maintains that the public hearings on the Bill, scheduled to take place in the Northern Cape and KwaZulu-Natal, respectively, cannot continue. The uncertainty regarding Nedlac should first be clarified.
Nedlac cannot be asked to brief the Committee before it has had the opportunity to thoroughly examine the Bill and issue a report on it.
Only then can the Bill be referred to Parliament for further processing.
The FF Plus’s stance as well as letters about the matter to the chairperson of the Committee, Dr Sibongisenbi Dhlomo, was discussed in detail by the Committee last week.
The FF Plus pointed out that several important organisations and role players in the industry, such as Business Unity South Africa, formally lodged objections to the processes with Parliament.
It was brought to the Committee’s attention that if the public hearings were to proceed, it would inevitably lead to legal action against the Government of National Unity (GNU) and the Committee will have to account for it.
The FF Plus’s efforts, supported by governing partners and opposition parties, to bring the matter to vote in the Committee last week were unsuccessful. The ANC chairperson, Dr Dhlomo, simply overruled it with the EFF’s help.
Dr Dhlomo, however, said in a media statement after Friday’s meeting that the Committee will proceed with the public hearings and that there is consensus on the matter. That is not true.
There is definitely not consensus, and the FF Plus will keep the pressure on to prevent this rash and ill-considered Bill from being improperly passed into law.
