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As of tomorrow, and for the first time in around 145 days, South Africans will be legally allowed to purchase cigarettes.

Hello, alert level 2 – we’ve been waiting a while.

Of course, the overwhelming majority of smokers have been puffing away regardless, just at inflated prices for inferior quality. It may have taken far longer than necessary, but the fact that the ban was “pointless” finally hit home.

Despite the fact that the ban on the sale of tobacco will be dropped, the ongoing court cases, fought between our government and industry powerhouses, won’t simply cease to exist.

The Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) has announced that it will continue with its legal action, where it’s appealing against the High Court decision to dismiss its court bid to have the cigarette sales ban overturned.

As chairperson Sinenhlanhla Mnguni pointed out in an interview CapeTalk’s Zain Johnson, it’s definitely a case of once bitten, twice shy:

We welcome the President’s announcement of the lifting of the ban… but we are not getting too excited just yet.

We’ve been here before on the 23rd of April when the President made a similar announcement… we are yet to see the regulations. Until then, we’re very cautious in terms of our approach going forward.

There’s been no efforts from the government to even give us an ear… We’ve been in the dark… Government had not told us anything and there haven’t been measures put in place to assist the industry.

I shudder to think about the scenes that would follow a reversal on this front.

Utter madness on Facebook, hundreds of hastily organised marches, and yet more valuable tax revenue down the pisser at SARS.

For some number-crunching regarding lost tax revenue, here’s BusinessTech:

The prohibition on alcohol and cigarette sales has come at a hefty cost to South Africa’s fiscus, says SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter.

Kieswetter said that the country was already facing a shortfall as a result of the nationwide coronavirus lockdown.

He said that employment taxes are down by R14.5 billion (around 9%), while corporate income tax is down R16 billion (28%).

Tax from alcohol sales suffered an estimated R7 billion shortfall, whilst the same figure for the smoking ban was around R3 billion.

More on that here.

All the while, illicit cigarette traders have strengthened their position in the local market, which may well result in further lost tax revenue for years to come.

Perhaps the word “pointless” is too kind to describe the tobacco sales ban.

[sources:capetalk&bustech]