Ramaphosa takes charge amid new-rules mixups
• President denies he is being undermined by ministers
President Cyril Ramaphosa moved to assert his political authority in the face of criticism that he is being undermined by ministers who have created a state of confusion in business and wider society with contradictory regulations during the nationwide lockdown.
The issue came to the fore last week when co-operative governance minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma, who narrowly lost the ANC leadership race to Ramaphosa in December 2017, told the nation that a decision to allow the sale of tobacco products during the current phase, which started on May 1, was being reversed. This was just six days after Ramaphosa had said such sales would be allowed.
The president said in his weekly newsletter on Monday that he now supports continuing with the ban, and that the change in his position had come after wide consultations, including with medical experts.
“A decision like this is bound to be controversial, but it is wrong to suggest that there are ministers or a president doing and saying whatever they want on this matter,” he said.
Dlamini-Zuma’s announcement raised suspicions that she was overruling Ramaphosa, and that the president’s efforts to guide the country through the Covid-19 crisis are being undermined by factional battles in the governing ANC party.
One opponent of the ban, finance minister Tito Mboweni did get overruled, raising concern that ministers in the security cluster have gained the upper hand, to the detriment of an economy that is set to shrink by the most in almost a century.
Meanwhile, the government also faces possible court action by the tobacco industry. British American Tobacco (BAT), the world’s second-largest cigarette producer, wrote to DlaminiZuma on April 30, demanding
that the government overturn the ban by 10am on Monday or face legal action. Business Day was unable to establish if BAT had filed its papers by the close of business on Monday.
When Ramaphosa announced that the lockdown would be eased slightly from the beginning of May, he said the ban on the sale of smoking products would be lifted. But DlaminiZuma, who as health minister in the late 1990s pushed tobacco control legislation through parliament, said later this was no longer the case, citing submissions from the public as part motivation for the U-turn. This was even though the government had ignored opposition to other regulations, such as restrictions on e-commerce and hot food sales at supermarkets.
“This was a collective decision, and the public statements by both myself and the minister were done on behalf of, and mandated by, the collective I lead,” Ramaphosa said.
The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita), a lobby group that represents Southern African cigarette manufacturers, is also approaching the courts to have the ban overturned. As part of its notice of motion filed on Monday, Fita chair Sinen Mnguni said in an affidavit the group wants the president and Dlamini-Zuma to provide it and SA with information and records of meetings that underpin the decision.
It also wants the high court in Pretoria to overturn the ban, and declare tobacco products essential goods. Mnguni said the ban has a negative commercial effect on manufacturers and their right to pursue their business, while it also leads to an increase in illicit trade, with the loss to the state of tax revenue that would have been generated. The ban on the sale of alcohol and tobacco products during the lockdown has produced an underrecovery of R1.5bn in April, according to SA Revenue Service commissioner Edward Kieswetter.
The ban does have its supporters. The World Health Organisation (WHO), in. a joint statement with several research and civil society organisations, said the ban will relieve the burden of severe cases of Covid-19 on the health system.
“Emerging research shows that people who use tobacco products are more likely to experience severe Covid-19 outcomes, which will have an impact on the health system and health-care workers.
“They are more likely to require mechanical ventilators, ICU [intensive care units] and are more likely to die,” said the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, the WHO, the Human Sciences Research Council, the National Council Against Smoking, the SA Medical Research Council, the Cancer Association of SA, Africa Centre for Tobacco Industry Monitoring and Policy Research and the Heart and Stroke Foundation SA.
They said e-cigarettes have been linked to lung damage and cardiovascular disease, and smokers with Covid-19 are more likely to develop severe disease than nonsmokers.