Tobacco company's media campaign to influence the national budget!

Tobacco companies have started an organized media campaign with a view to obstruct any govt. attempt to increase tobacco tax and price in the upcoming national budget 2019-20. Their claim is that if the country's tobacco tax and price see an increase in the upcoming budget, there will be a surge in illicit tobacco trade in the country which will ultimately cause a loss of revenues for the govt. Using the specter of illicit trade of cigarettes is a long known covert media strategy of tobacco companies to confuse and derail policymakers. With their well-crafted methods of spreading lies, tobacco company lobbyists claim that huge quantity of illicit cigarettes is entering Bangladesh from neighbouring countries resulting in a gigantic revenue loss for the govt. in order to discourage the policymakers from increasing tobacco taxes on their products. This year, as usual, they have prepared a report on illicit tobacco trade which is far from truth and reality. The report is being published in a number of local and national dailies and online news portals under different headlines. They even falsely quoted PROGGA, an anti-tobacco organization, to fulfil their purpose. Unfortunately, some renowned economists and intellectuals of Bangladesh seem to agree with the false claims of tobacco companies.

According to a World Bank report titled Confronting Illicit Tobacco Trade: A Global review of Country Experiences, published in February 2019, the increase in tobacco taxes has barely any relation with illicit trade of cigarettes and the percentage of illicit trade of tobacco in Bangladesh stands at merely 1.8 percent, the lowest in 27 countries. The report also states that illicit tobacco trade constitutes 17 percent of tobacco trade in our neighbouring country India, 38 percent in Pakistan, 36 percent in Malaysia and the highest 50 percent in Latvia. The World Bank report also suggests that there is no relation between increasing tobacco tax and influx of illicit cigarettes because the latter is completely related to the efficiency of administration. Illicit tobacco trade is solely a result of gross administrative mismanagement in our country. So relating these two unlikely factors based on tobacco companies' relentless propaganda is utterly undesirable.

Prices of tobacco products is very cheap in Bangladesh which makes illicit tobacco trade even more unlikely. A 2016 World Health Organization (WHO) report analyzed the average price of a cigarette pack containing 20 cigarettes in different countries and found out that average price of cheapest cigarettes is more than twice in India than it is in Bangladesh. So, the common logic of Economics dictates that there is no scope for Bangladesh to experience the influx of smuggled cigarettes. Thus, the National Revenue Board should ignore the tobacco industry propaganda and to take effective tobacco price and tax measures for increasing the prices of all tobacco products in the upcoming budget.