By Xavier Kong
Cigarette manufacturers are appalled by the 40% rise in excise duties which may see their consumer base raising torches and pitchforks, switching to vaping or illegals, or quitting altogether. Equally appalled is Tiger.
No, Tiger is not a smoker (neither is Tiger a vaper, just to put it out there). However, that does not stop Tiger from being completely and utterly flabbergasted by the news that British American Tobacco (Malaysia) Bhd (BAT) raising their prices by RM3.20 across the board for all their brands.
As smokers started asking how and why, BAT responded that it was due to an off-Budget excise duty hike, which managing director Stefano Clini noted was in the region of “more than 40%”. This, by itself, was enough to almost strike this Tiger speechless yet again. Honestly, this might be the straw that breaks the camel’s back!
Ponder this. Ever since 2004, the government has been implementing excise duty hike after another on the tobacco sector, with the only exceptions being 2011 and 2012. With cigarette prices as they are now, and with fellow tobacco sector giants Japan Tobacco International and Philip Morris International likely to follow suit, smokers are definitely going to feel the pinch if they are to continue smoking.
So much for rakyat first.
At the same time, this seems counter-productive to the government’s attempts at doing something about the vaping industry, which, in itself, has caused Tiger no small amount of confusion.
This move to raise the excise duty on cigarettes is very likely to push a lot of smokers towards vaping for good, considering the bigger savings in vape right now following the price hike by tobacco companies. It almost seems like the government is defending vaping.
Wait, that cannot be the case. What about the initial move to ban vaping, calling it a detriment to health and “nipping it in the bud”, so to speak? That move was met with the government deciding not to ban vaping, with Rural and Regional Development Minister Ismail Sabri Yaakob declaring that vaping was part of the “aspirations of the youth”.
Tiger still calls bovine excrement on the reasoning behind the ban though. Really, leveraging on health? Tiger would like to point out, yet again, that cigarettes have been scientifically proven to increase the risk of lung and throat cancer, with chemicals numbering over 4,000.
How is it that when a healthier option appears, the government is not pushing for the rakyat to move towards that instead? For that matter, if the government is so concerned about the health of the rakyat, why not ban cigarettes altogether?
Dr S Subramaniam
On that note, Health Minister Dr S Subramaniam, who spearheaded the idea of the ban, said that they will be “conducting operations” to seize products with a nicotine content, with the good minister adding that they will “move and move hard”. It is with a snicker that Tiger continues writing, as Tiger still cannot fathom how the good minister managed to say the line with a straight face.
Still, there is a cause for concern. Is this a fragmentation of leadership, or is this just the matter of a minister going off like a loose cannon? Either option is worrying, in Tiger’s opinion.
Tiger’s opinion also includes the perspective that this whole thing about nicotine being a poison as defined by the law is but a loophole or technicality being used by the good minister to curb vaping, as tobacco companies are already licenced to sell products that contain tobacco.
All this leads to Tiger believing that there is something afoot behind the excise duty hike. Not the timing, with the hikes over the past having happened around this time, but rather the quantum, as “more than 40%” seems unnaturally and unnecessarily steep, considering the pressure that tobacco companies are already facing.
Wait a minute. What if all this is a grand plan to apply pressure on the industry as a whole, to see which would be the sole survivor?
As the saying goes, pressure makes diamonds, though it also makes rubble. Still, even if this is the case, Tiger feels that the government is going about it wrong, as there always remains the option of going underground, with illicit cigarettes going at about RM3 a pack, which is a fraction of the price of a pack of value-for-money cigarettes at RM15.50.
As it stands, Tiger remains steadfastly against the recent excise duty hike, which proves itself unfair not only to the rakyat, but also to tobacco companies. Also, why raise the excise duty off-Budget? Why not just table it during the Budget itself?
There are too many questions here, and not enough answers. Never a good situation, in Tiger’s opinion.
GRRRRR!!!
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