Sugar tax best way to swallow bitter pill that we are fat

THERE’S no way to sugar-coat this: South Africans are a bunch of fatty boom-booms, and the taxman says the only way to shrink our wobbly stomachs is through our equally wobbly wallets.

In February Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan warned the nation that a tax on sugary drinks was on the cards — and on Friday the National Treasury unveiled the price it wants us to pay for our sweet teeth: a proposed levy of two cents per gram of sugar in every cooldrink we buy.

Pure fruit juice and unsweetened milk will be exempt, but the price of a 1-litre bottle of Coca-Cola, for example, will likely rise by R2.29.

Will this shrink the national waistline? Experts say sugar taxes are the most cost-effective way to fight the scourge of refined sugar, which causes obesity, heart disease, diabetes, tooth decay and some cancers.

Aviva Tugendhaft, deputy director at Priceless SA, the research unit based at Wits University’s School of Public Health, said while they were happy with the recommendations, they would like to see 100% fruit juices included in the sugar tax.

Several countries already tax cooldrinks — including Mexico, France, Ireland, Mauritius and Norway. The UK, Thailand and Australia are set to follow suit, while former New York mayor Michael Bloomberg enraged the Big Apple’s chubbier children two years ago by imposing a limit on the size of cooldrinks restaurants can serve.

South Africa’s sugar problem is no laughing matter, according to a new report by the University of the Witwatersrand’s School of Public Health. Diabetes causes 2 000 amputations and 8 000 cases of blindness each year. We are — uncomfortably — the flabbiest country in sub-Saharan Africa, with only Egypt and Libya rivalling us for the title of Africa’s lardiest land: 39% of South African women and 11% of men were obese in 2011.

Although sugar consumption growth has dipped in recent years, with many middle-class consumers adopting the low-sugar, highprotein Banting diet, most obese South Africans are too poor to “Bant”. And the Treasury hopes that taxing drinks per gram of sugar will encourage food producers to cut sugar content.

If the threat of the sweet tax leaves a bitter taste, you can offer your two-cents’ worth to those killjoys at the Treasury. Send your comments to Mpho Legote at Mpho.Legote@treasury.gov.za by August 22 2016.

But you’re going to need a weighty argument to keep the taxman sweet.