Public Health on Top

Tobacco companies employ a number of tactics to influence tobacco price and tax measures in the national budget. The companies exploit, in particular, the expertise and influence of researchers, economists and members of parliament (MPs) to implement their agenda. An analysis of tobacco companies’ budget-centric activities for the FY 2020-21 national budget reveals that some of these above-mentioned eminent personalities have worked for multinational companies to raise prices of low tier cigarettes without raising taxes. Another such group pushed for preserving 100 percent quota for the local manufacturers of low-tier cigarettes. There was also another group that worked to ensure that the taxes and prices of bidi do not see a hike. A considerable number of articles, opinion pieces and reports were published and circulated widely in assistance to the pro-tobacco campaign of these companies. Extensive discussion was also held on these issues in the parliament. In-depth scrutiny of these published news items shows that the media pieces that supported budget proposals propagated by multinational companies are almost identical. The only difference lies in the name of the authors (researchers, economists) and media houses. The picture is similar in case of local cigarette and bidi manufacturers. One thing that is common in all these cases is the abundance of wrong and manipulative information and distortion of facts. Overall, tobacco companies have been considerably successful this year in their campaign to keep their death trade unscathed and to misguide the government into using the well-examined tobacco control tool, tobacco price and tax measure, in such erroneous way that is bound to fail from the beginning. The formulation and implementation of a simple tobacco price and tax policy in accordance with the Hon. Prime Minister's directive and effective implementation of the WHO FCTC Article 5.3 to fend off interference of tobacco companies are the most effective ways of achieving a tobacco-free Bangladesh.