ISLAMABAD: The tobacco industry has caused billions of rupees worth of loss to the government exchequer by providing false figures on the illicit trade in cigarettes.

According to the claims of the tobacco industry, 40pc of the sale of cigarettes were of spurious cigarettes when in reality this number is not more than 9pc, according to a study launched on Wednesday.

Conducted by the Pakistan National Hearts Association (Panah) in collaboration with the Human Development Foundation (HDF), the research titled ‘Study to Assess the Volume of Illicit Cigarette Brands’ comes at a time when deliberations are going on among government departments to finalise the budget for the next fiscal year.

It shows that the claims by which the tobacco industry avoided increase in tax during the current fiscal year are not true.

The budget is expected to be announced in the last week of the current month.

Before the current fiscal year’s budget was announced, the Ministry of National Health Services (NHS) suggested increasing the tax on cigarettes and recommended that minimum tax should be Rs44 for a pack of 20 cigarettes.

However, in the 2017-18 budget, a third tier for the tax was introduced due to which the tax was reduced to Rs16 per pack of 20 cigarettes.

The tax was reduced in order to stop the illicit trade in Pakistan as the tobacco industry had claimed that the due to the high taxes, illicit cigarettes had taken over 40pc of the total market.

Ten cities including Rawalpindi, Lahore, Karachi, Sukkur, Multan, Hyderabad, Peshawar, Quetta, Muzaffarabad and Nowshera were chosen for the survey. A total of 2,111 retailers were visited by the survey teams to find out what kinds of cigarettes were being sold and what the smoking trends were.

Empty cigarette packets thrown away by smokers were also collected from these cities.

It was observed that 62pc of these cigarettes were prices between Rs30 and Rs60 as per the price printed on the packs.

Around 90pc were locally manufactured and the percentage of illicit cigarettes was 9pc.

The study revealed that the trade in illicit cigarettes was mostly in the expensive brands category.

The study claims that the tobacco industry’s contention that illicit cigarettes constitute a major chunk of the market is not acceptable.

Former health minister Dr Sania Nishtar said the study was timely as the budget is being prepared and hoped that the prime minister and his team will look into it.

She said tobacco contributes to a lot of deaths and illenesses worldwide and that the WHO Framework Convention on Tobacco Control should be implemented by increasing the tax on cigarettes.

Head of the think tank, Sustainable Development Policy Institute, Dr Abid Q. Suleri said 160,000 Pakistanis die due to tobacco related diseases every year but the government does not do anything because the tobacco industry contributes Rs160 billion a year.

Panah President retired Maj Gen Masudur Rehman Kiani said his organisation has been working on raising awareness about avoiding heart attack risks for three decades.

“One Pakistani suffers a heart attack every three minutes and tobacco is the major contributor,” he said.

HDF representative Azhar Saleem said there are 20 million smokers in Pakistan and that the country is ranked as one of the worst in terms of smoking.

He said the tobacco industry has started targeting children and suggested that cigarette prices be increased.

Pakistan has one of the largest tobacco consuming populations in the world with some 20.1 million users. Tobacco contributes to 11pc of all the deaths in the country. Cigarettes are the most used form of tobacco with 85pc of users smoking it. There is a 10.7 pc rate of tobacco use among the youth.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2018