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The British American Tobacco (BAT) company and the Customs, Excise and Preventive Service (CEPS) are engaged in a two-day anti-counterfeiting workshop at the La Palm Royal Hotel.
The two organizations signed a Memorandum of Understanding to collaborate in the area of fighting counterfeiting and trading in such products with particular reference to cigarettes.
In his overview of the workshop, Don Ayao Dussey, BAT's Corporate & Regulatory Affairs Manager, West and Central Africa, described the event as another milestone in the fight against illicit trade in Ghana. . . .
"It is in recognition of the tremendous contribution of CEPS and other security agencies to reducing the illicit trade that we donated 12 jungle motorbikes to help CEPS in their efforts to have better control of our borders and the product flow," he said.
BAT, he said, was committed to setting high standards of good corporate citizenship by helping to improve the capacity of their partners in the process of eliminating illicit trading activities. . . .
Some 12 countries mostly in Africa and the Middle East accounted for most of the financial losses of BAT in terms of illegal trade in tobacco products.
Nigeria with a very big market, he pointed out, accounted for $48 million, followed by South Africa with $44 million.
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Cameroon coach Otto Pfister came under fire on Thursday for setting a bad example by smoking at the Baba Yara Stadium in Kumasi during Saturday's game against Zambia.
The condemnation of the 70-year-old's decision to light up in a stadium where smoking is banned came from the Abibimman Foundation, a local non-government health organisation.
The body issued a statement accusing the oldest manager at the African Nations Cup of giving a bad image to young people in Ghana and Africa at large, the Ghanaian Times reported. . . .
It recalled that Pfister is a well known figure on the continental football stage, and carries serious influence with the youth of the country.
Currently, there is no legislation on tobacco control in Ghana although the Minister of Health has presented a draft bill to cabinet. On World Tobacco Day in 1989, a policy statement was made to ban smoking in public places including cinemas, restaurants and public offices. In 1991, the Ghana Government banned smoking on the premises of any Ministry of Health premises in the country and also outlawed direct advertising of cigarettes and other tobacco products on radio, television and newspapers. This ban is still respected by the mass media, but some form of tobacco advertisement occurs where a brand is used to advertise a program it is sponsoring. Points of sale and billboard advertisements are still permitted and the warning signs are barely readable.
Of all places, bars, restaurants and nightclubs have the highest air concentration of secondhand smoke, however, these places have generally been excluded from smoke-free policies.
Secondhand smoke/ environmental tobacco smoke/passive smoke is a mixture of 2 forms of toxic waste of tobacco combustion emitted from smoke that come from the end of a lighted cigarette, pipe, or cigar (sidestream smoke) and smoke that is exhaled from a smoker (mainstream smoke). Nonsmokers exposed to second hand smoke (a process called involuntary or passive smoking) absorb all the toxic chemicals just like smokers do. Tobacco smoke contains over 4000 harmful chemicals . . .
In a review titled “The Tobacco Atlas” conducted in Ghana by J. Mackay, Omar Shafey and M Eriksen, it was reported that smoking prevalence among males 15 years and over range between 20% - 29% and for females 15 years and over, below 10%. The most effective way to prevent secondhand tobacco smoke exposure is to ban smoking in workplaces, homes and other public places such as bars and restaurants. . . .
On 20th June 2003, Ghana signed a treaty with World Health Organization Framework Tobacco Control (FCTC). The treaty recognizes that exposure to tobacco smoke has been scientifically proven to cause death, disease and disability. . . .
The Ministry of Health submitted the tobacco control bill drafted by the Food and Drugs Board to the Government of Ghana in June 2005. In spite of public outcry, cabinet has proverbially sat on the bill and has refused to send it to parliament for them to debate and legislate on the issue. Considering the track record of the tobacco industry, one may wonder if money has changed hands between the industry and the cabinet.
Mr. Justice V.C.R.A.C. Crabbe, Commissioner of Statute Law Revision, Attorney General's Department was on Monday awarded with a special prize and certificate by the World Health Organisation (WHO), African Regional Office for his contribution towards tobacco control. . . .
Justice Crabbe is the first Ghanaian to have won the prize. The award was given at a seminar on Global Tobacco Surveillance Dissemination in Accra, by Dr Joiaquim Saweka, WHO Country Representative who praised Justice Crabbe for bringing to bear his experiences as a drafter of constitutional laws on the draft bill. "On behalf of the Director General of WHO, Dr Margaret Chan and Regional Director for Africa, Dr Luis Gomes Sambo, I congratulate Justice Crabbe for winning the award", he said. During the seminar, Major Courage Quashigah, Minister of Health said tobacco should be seen as a health issue and not as a human right issue.
Clinicians in Africa and developing countries must build a database on smoking, alcohol and substance abuse through research to enable them to inform and advise policy makers on the appropriate strategy required to curb the menace.
Dr George Amofa, Deputy Director-General of Ghana Health Service, made the point in Accra on Friday at the opening of a two-day consultation meeting on the use of the Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test tool dubbed: 'ASSIST' and brief intervention strategies against substance abuse in African countries. It was organised by the World Health Organisation (WHO).
LARGE QUANTITIES of Bond cigarettes manufactured by Philip Morris International (PMI) which has no agency in Ghana were found to be stocked in a warehouse in Kumasi .
A container full of about 1,094 master cases of the stuff were found at an old sawmill which serves as a warehouse at the Kaase Industrial Area in Kumasi.
The cigarettes are believed to be counterfeit since they are being sold at a ridiculously low price of ¢1.5 million per master case instead of the normal price of between ¢3milion and ¢3.5 million.
APART FROM being the most guinea worm endemic and most economically disadvantaged region in Ghana, the Northern Region is now rated as the region with the highest incidence of cigarette smoking and use of other tobacco products in Ghana.
According to Ghana Health Service Demographic Survey (2003), the Northern Region which is predominantly Muslim, is leading in cigarette smoking with 17.7% while the Upper West and Upper East Regions are also following in the second and third positions with 15.3% and 11.4% respectively.
Addressing a Press Briefing in Tamale to mark the '2007 World No Tobacco Day', the Northern Regional Health Promoter of the Ghana Health Services (GHS), Alhaji Abdul B. Yakubu expressed serious disappointment at the positions of the three Northern Regions on the Ghana Demographical and Health Survey.
In a climax to the closure of BAT Ghana, the global tobacco group, British American Tobacco (BAT) Investment B.V has paid Ghanaian shareholders of the company the sum $15-million (N1.9-billion).
The pay-off, which started on February 6 and ended, saw BAT Investment paying for 30,652,820 ordinary shares priced at 4,266 cedis (about N70) per share.
A letter HSBC London, bankers for BAT Investment, had written to the Ghana Stock Exchange and the Securities and Exchange Commission in December 2006 informed the regulatory agencies of its client's decision to pay off the Ghanaian shareholders as a result of closing down its Ghanaian production outfit.
Conclusion:
Ghana recognized the need to control tobacco use, long before the WHO FCTC idea, which culminated in the treaty and the country’s draft legislation on Tobacco Control. Tobacco Control has been one of the regular activities undertaken by the Health Education unit of the Ministry of Health and the Ministry of Information. It is hoped with the current impetus, all stakeholders will help make tobacco use outdated, so as to improve the health of the people in the country, despite the economic gains from the tobacco industry.
So, who or what is holding up the progress of the Tobacco Bill?
Professor Akosa, the boss of Ghana's health service has gone public once more to express his frustration at the way the bill is being handled - see story on front page. . . .
Let's go ahead and pass the bill into law; yes, we would lose some revenue, but Finance Minister Baah-Wiredu would be surprised to discover that our nation would survive and grow even stronger. Come on! Let's show the cigarette lobby that we care for the health of our people.
Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, Director-General of the Ghana Health Service (GHS); on Tuesday expressed regret about the delay in the passage of the law to the ban smoking in public places.
"Somebody is sitting on it, working so seriously to prevent the Tobacco bill from being passed into law and I want them to prove me wrong."
He said it was sad that though many Ghanaians were in support of the campaign to pass the law that would among other things ban smoking in public places, the process was being delayed. Prof. Akosa said this at a day's dissemination seminar on a study conducted on the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for religious groups in Accra.
The Director-General of the Ghana Health Service Professor Agyemang Badu Akosa says he believes the long delay in passing the law to ban smoking in public places is the doing of some interested party.
“Somebody is sitting on it, working so seriously to prevent the Tobacco bill from being passed into law and I want them to prove me wrong.”
He said it was sad that though many Ghanaians were in support of the campaign to pass the law that would among other things ban smoking in public places, the process was being delayed.
Prof. Akosa said this at a day's seminar on a study conducted on the implementation of the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC) for religious groups in Accra.
Present at the seminar were representatives from the Christian Council of Ghana, Catholic Secretariat, Federation of Muslim Councils, Ghana Muslim Mission, Charismatic Churches and Coalition of Muslim Organisations.
Mr. Kwaku Agyemang Manu, Deputy Minister of Interior, has expressed regret about the upsurge of wee smoking among the youth at Dormaa Ahenkro in the Brong Ahafo Region and called for immediate steps to arrest the situation.
He said any further delay in eliminating the practice would only lead many of the youths to psychiatric hospitals.
Mr. Manu made the call when he organized an end-of-year get-together for heads of department and members of the press at Dormaa-Ahenkro.
He identified a spot near the Methodist chapel building in the town, where he said the youths, both boys and girls, besieged daily to indulge in the practice.
Ghana's chief anti-smoking campaigner, the director-general of the country's health service, Professor Agyeman Badu Akosa, is stepping up a campaign to ban smoking in public places as a bill to ban smoking in public places continues to gather dust.
Akosa is threatening to march on the seat of government with a signed petition over the government's failure to act on smoking.
"Eighteen months is too long for the bill to be with cabinet," says an exasperated Akosa, who is also calling for a ban on tobacco advertising and the imposition of higher taxes on cigarettes.
A survey by the Ghana Health Service conducted in October and November 2006 revealed that 96 per cent of Ghanaians are in favour of legislation on tobacco control.