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BCMA wants to involve in formulating roadmap to tobacco-free Bangladesh

Bangladesh Cigarette Manufacturers’ Association (BCMA) has ramped up its lobbying effort to establish itself as a stakeholder in the formulation of the roadmap to build a tobacco-free country by 2040. On 20 February 2020, the organization sent a letter to the Ministry of Finance with regard to this issue. In the letter, BCMA presented its illogical explanation and hollow reasoning against a number of well-examined and effective tobacco control measures and argued that these measures should not be included in the roadmap. The measures that BCMA wants to eliminate from the roadmap include divestment of the government’s share from tobacco company, introduction of plain packaging, ban on emerging tobacco products, increasing pictorial warning up to 90 percent, increasing prices and taxes for all tobacco products, introduction of specific taxes and increasing health development surcharge. Through this letter, BCMA wants to instigate a baseless fear of possible revenue loss into the Finance Ministry so that the Ministry disrupts the formulation process on its behalf. Another reason behind this move is to influence the decisions regarding tobacco taxes, ahead of the national budget. In order to interfere in the formulation of National Tobacco Control Policy 2019, the organization had previously sent another letter addressed to Finance Minister.

It should be noted that the FCTC Article 5.3 (13) recommends the government to be free from the influence of tobacco companies while formulating and implementing tobacco control policies. So as a party to FCTC, the government must keep itself free from the manipulation and interference tobacco companies and finalize and implement the roadmap to a tobacco-free Bangladesh at its earliest.