In this Covid moment we should examine the ethics of all commerce, not just tobacco
One day, when the Covid-19 threat has subsided and the noise of self-serving lobbies has receded, we might want to have a frank national discourse about the impact of tobacco on our society. While Covid-19 has amplified SA’s entrenched and long-standing social and economic disparities, the tobacco ban dispute has shone a light on the elephant in the room — the question of business ethics.
With the virtual annihilation of its profits, the tobacco industry has, predictably, waged a campaign to force the government to reverse its ban on the sale of tobacco products.
Apart from turning to the courts to assert its right to make and sell its products, the industry showed its power by marshalling influential forces from the ranks of scientists, academics and journalists, among others.
In their bid to get smokers puffing away again, the industry and its lobbyists have thrown the kitchen sink at the government.
One part of the strategy is to effectively delegitimise the relevant regulations as being scientifically baseless, by portraying government ministers as vengeful, mindless ideologues.
Trumpeting the alleged absence of evidence linking smoking to Covid-19, they also moonlighted as trade unions, pointing to potential job losses.
For good measure, they even posed as bleedingheart social workers, pleading for the emotional wellbeing of smokers.
The other tactic was to cast aspersions on the face of the government’s Covid-19 containment efforts, the minister of co-operative governance & traditional affairs, Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma. This followed a decision, announced by Dlamini-Zuma, to retain the ban on tobacco sales — contradicting an earlier statement by President Cyril
Ramaphosa.
All of a sudden, the tobacco issue was held up, quite mysteriously, as a litmus test of Ramaphosa’s ability to lead not only his cabinet but the country as well.
The ad hominem attacks on Dlamini-Zuma included that she might have organised a cabinet revolt against the president, thereby publicly humiliating him. Also, she basically fancied herself as prime minister, despite the fact that we have not had that post in nearly 40 years. Of course, we have yet to be shown the evidence.
In addition to being thus politically untrustworthy, she was painted as an incorrigible anti-smoking zealot, whose views were premised on personal prejudice as opposed to scientific fact.
But the coup de grace of the pro-smoking lobby was meant to be financial.
It argued, as it still does, that proscribing tobacco sales drives smokers into the sleazy arms of the illicit tobacco trade, thereby depriving the fiscus of much-needed tax revenue. A sentiment, by the way, with which finance minister Tito Mboweni sympathised.
Under pressure to spend more in the face of declining revenues, Mboweni’s stance is perhaps understandable — although he might have to spend some of that revenue on caring for people with smoking-induced lung ailments.
It is this argument that brings us to the nub of the ethics question: should we countenance business activities that generate fiscal revenue, but also harm society?
The tobacco industry is a brilliant case study here. There is overwhelming scientific evidence of the health dangers and actual harm ascribed to tobacco and its products. That’s why policymakers around the world have sought to discourage smoking — through, among other things, steep taxes, advertising bans and strict packaging rules.
As things stand, the tobacco-makers are able to look to our constitution to assert their right to sell their products, despite their harmful effects. But should that remain the case in the much-vaunted, post-Covid economy?
Or, in that promised land, should we not refocus attention on the ethics of doing business in SA? Should a business’s mere payment of taxes, which is its obligation, give it the right to do harm to society? And should merely not doing harm be deemed a sufficient social contribution?
The current spotlight on the tobacco industry, and the impact of its products, may very well elicit much what-aboutism regarding other industries or businesses with ethical deficits.
Indeed, what to do about motor manufacturers that make cars with devilish top speeds, increasing the probability of road fatalities?
What about agriculture’s use of chemicals in food production? Or livestock farming’s impact on global warming?
And do we leave alone those who sell obesityfuelling junk food?
Beyond that, how will we deal with the perennial, multibillion-rand crime of “cooking” the corporate books, as exposed in the cases of
Steinhoff, Tongaat Hulett, VBS Mutual Bank and others? Not forgetting the audit firms that aided and abetted the wrongdoing.
Of late, we’ve had the major mobile operators, MTN and Vodacom, being forced by regulatory intervention to lower their data prices, long recognised as key to economic growth. That with the 2010 World Cup construction scandal still fresh in our collective memory.
Of course, we would also have to pay attention to the many parastatals, too many to mention here, that have become part of the toxic mix of corruption.
And, more relevant in these days of life-anddeath social distancing, what do we say to employers who show a total disregard for the living conditions of their employees, or for the safety of their transport to and from work?
The question to ask, raised by the corporate ethics challenges we face, is: how would business act if it did not have regulators watching over its shoulder?
Left to its own devices, without public scrutiny, can business be trusted to act with integrity?