Tobacco.org

• Shelter children from smoking, parents told 

Tanzanian parents who smoke can and should play a big role in blocking the young generation from picking up the killer habit.

Public education and sensitization, strict enforcement of anti-smoking regulations and sharpening legislation against tobacco are also key facilitators of the campaign against a crop whose effects are medically and environmentally disastrous.

So says Professor Robert Machang`u, the National Professional Officer at the WHO Regional Office in Dar es Salaam and Chairman of the Tanzania Public Health Association.

He was speaking in Dar es Salaam yesterday, at a workshop for tobacco control champions - young citizens belonging to nearly 10 groups that are working closely with the Tanzania Tobacco Control Forum (TTCF). . . .

Homes are thus breeding grounds for smokers, he said, urging parents to protect their offspring by refraining from manipulating them as cigarette buyers and lighters.

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Farmers benefit from firm's initiative 

Environment and economic projects financed by Tanzania Cigarette Company (TCC) in Tabora, have helped improve the welfare of tobacco growers in the region, a district commissioner said last week. Tabora Urban DC Moshi Chang'a made the commendation during a seminar organised by the company on enhanced communication among stakeholders.

He said benefits of the projects included use of modern tobacco curing barns called rocket barns that have cut firewood demand by half. The official hailed the company for investing in the projects, saying many families have benefited from the initiative. TCC organised the seminar in conjunction with a non-governmental organisation, Total Land Care (TLC). TCC, through its parent company, the Japan Tobacco International in association with other partners, sponsors environment and economic projects in Tabora Region's five districts of Urambo, Uyui, Sikonge, Tabora and Nzega.

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Tobacco pin-pointed as big marital spoiler 

Revelations that smoking is a source of marital problems besides the commonly known medical one of causing cancerous diseases, shocked the audience at a function focused on the effects of tobacco, which was held in Dar es Salaam on Friday.

The audience comprised mostly members of the Tanzania Tobacco Control Forum (TTCF), who assembled at the Karimjee Hall for the Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the NGO, which is on the forefront in the battle to curb the growth and use of a crop that destabilises health, kills, drains lots of funds, slows down human welfare and destroys the environment.

The TTCF Executive Secretary, Lutgard Kagaruki, said research conducted in Namtumbo, Ruvuma Region - a major tobacco cultivation area - showed that loss of sexual potency by men was one of the ugly by-products, which often led to divorces.

Nearly 75 per cent of peasants there smoke raw tobacco and have respiratory diseases; and some 1,500 out-of-school children in the 8-17 age bracket labour on tobacco farms.

On a happy note, however, she told the audience that steadily, many cultivators, who were not prospering but driven into destitution instead due to low prices and debt bondage through being loaned inputs like fertiliser, were abandoning the crop

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Eight in Mpanda court over theft of tobacco  

Eight suspects, all residents of Mpanda Township, were arraigned before a Mpanda District Resident Magistrate in Rukwa Region on Friday charged with breaking into a warehouse and stealing 244 bales of tobacco worth more than 19m/-.

The tobacco was property of the Association of Tanzania Tobacco Traders (ATTT). Before Resident Magistrate Richard Kasele the accused denied the charges and were remanded until August 14, this year, when the court will rule on their bail applications. The eight accused persons were Hamza Feruzi (30); Edgar Anthony (24); Abuu Juma (27) and Ramadhan Hamisi (21).

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Pay tobacco farmers in cash-Sitta 

The Speaker of the National Assembly, Samuel Sitta, has instructed tobacco buyers to pay in cash when purchasing the crop from farmers instead of the prevailing notorious payments in terms of inputs.

Sitta who is also the Urambo East parliamentarian told local entrepreneurs here that tobacco buying companies were initially accepted by the Government as buyers of the commercial crop and not suppliers of inputs.

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• Malawi presses tobacco fight 

But the country, while still pursing the diversification agenda, has not given up the fight to rescue a crop that is very much the backbone of the country’s economy as oil is to the Middle East. This time, however, Malawi does not want to continue with the battle alone. Economic Report has established that Malawi has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with tobacco producing countries of Zambia, Tanzania, Zimbabwe and Mozambique to help position the industry so that the countries reap more. Industry, Trade and Private Sector Minister Ken Lipenga said in an interview that the MOU was signed last November. Among other things, he said, the agreement looks at issues of collective marketing as well as value-adding.

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Alternative crops needed to swap tobacco 

THE Tanzania Tobacco Control Forum (TTCF) has urged the government to introduce alternative cash crops in tobacco growing areas because the crop's growers encountered more health hazards than direct benefits from their efforts.

The Chairperson of the forum, Ms Lutgard Kagaruki, told members of the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Lands and the Investment and Trade Committee at a seminar here yesterday, that tobacco was as harmful to growers as it was to consumers.

In 2003/04, she said, Tanzania earned 55.5 million US dollars from tobacco exports, but the earnings did not appear to have any impact on the lives of tobacco growers in Sikonge and Namtumbo districts, she said.

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BAT to Sponsor Jua Kali Exhibition 

BRITISH American Tobacco East Africa BAT (EA) will spend $70,000 (sh129.5m) for promotion of the Jua Kali exhibition in Dar es Salaam in December.

The commissioner of industry and technology in the trade ministry, Eng. Samuel Ssenkungu, said, "BAT has been sponsoring the event on a rotational basis.

"BAT Kenya used to sponsor the event when the exhibition used to take place in Kenya. When the exhibition became an East Africa event, BAT East Africa is sponsoring it."

Ssenkungu said the sponsorship covers publicity, souvenirs, catalogues, media exposure, hospitality in BAT's stall for VIP visitors and ground supervision during the 10 days of the exhibition.

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• Smoking: The law they love to flout 

Smoking in public is prohibited by law to protect non-smokers but that law is violated with impunity in Dar es Salaam, according to a two week survey by The Guardian.

From bus stands, makeshift kiosks to five star hotels, Tobacco Products (Regulation) Act (2003), which prohibits smoking in public places, is flaunted routinely.

Smokers rule the day in public places, where they inhale their fags in total disregard to non smokers. This takes place in all parts of the city.

The violators of the law range from the common man to the police. In the spot check, some city residents were found smoking even at a police station! And it is not only adults who smoke.

In the survey it was discovered a small section of primary and secondary school students also do smoke.

Smoking at institutions like health centres, schools and child care centres is common place though illegal. In hotels and pubs smoking is but a way of life.

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• Tabora developing at a snail's pace 

There are two schools of thought in the minds of people regarding the way they perceive about the growth or development of Tabora region as a whole.

There are those who perceive that the region is heading towards patial collapse or dying, due to extensive shifting cultivation of tobacco. These people have reasons for believing the region is dying a natural death.

They mostly bank on assumptions that the region lacks industries, both light and heavy ones, poor infrastructure, specifically roads and dependence on only one commercial crop-tobacco, which again, is the biggest threat to the environment.

Tobacco cultivation has left many areas naked and barren because trees have been cut like nobody's busisness. The trees are cut for tobacco curing, firewood and charcoal.

The environment in many of these tobacco growing areas where massive tree cutting has taken place, have been eroded to an extent that they appear as if they were deserts.

Tobacco farmers keep shifting and thus causing more damage

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• Tobacco companies ordered to take care of land 

Rukwa Regional Commissioner Daniel Njolay has directed all tobacco companies operating in the region to establish tree nurseries and distribute seedlings to tobacco farmers in the coming rainy season.

The move aims at providing the farmers with sustainable source of firewood for curing tobacco crop in the long run instead of overdependence on natural forests, a practice blamed for causing severe deforestation in the region.

Njoolay was briefing the press at his office on Tuesday and held responsible both tobacco companies and farmers for damaging the land through reckless harvesting of trees for tobacco cure.

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• TCC pumping Tsh 200m into tobacco land annually 

The Tanzania Cigarette Company (TCC) will yearly commit Tsh.200 in supporting tree-planting programme around tobacco growing areas in Tanzania.

The pledge was announced last week by the President and CEO of JT International, Mr. Pierre de Labouchere in the presence of the Minister of State, Vice President Office Responsible for Environment, Prof Mark Mwandosya. JT International (JTI) is TCC's parent company.

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• Tobacco production threatens food cultivation 

Production of tobacco in the country threatens the availability of food, particularly in the communities, which the crop is highly grown.

Speaking in an exclusive interview with The Guardian, the Tanzania Tobacco Control Forum (TTCF) General Secretary, Lutgard Kagaruki, said the agricultural activity threatened food security because the farmers use most of their time working in the tobacco farms.

''The farmers spend very little time in food crop production, and as a result they end up having no enough food,'' Kagaruki observed.

She said that the areas where tobacco is grown most are fertile and allowed the cultivation of other food crops as well.

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• EDITORIAL: Ban smoking in public places 

A Damning report by an influential British NGO has accused cigarette manufacturing multinational giants of using methods that are illegal in UK and European Union to promote tobacco products in the East African region.

The giants are also accused of manipulating local politicians to defeat the enactment of effective tobacco control legislations.

Action on Smoking and Health (ASH) accuses governments in the region for not doing enough to protect the environment and the citizens by enacting legislations that would restrict and control the cultivation, sell and consumption of tobacco. . . .

It is worth noting that Tanzania has already signed the World Health Organisation's Framework Convention on Tobacco Control, which broadly calls on governments to take measures that would protect the public from the dangers posed by tobacco.

Therefore, the government is duty bound to incorporate the Convention in the country's laws.

The government ought to take deliberate action to protect innocent members of the public, especially children and youth from the devastating effects of tobacco. . . .

In fact, our prescription is not a blanket ban of tobacco consumption, but enactment of legislation that would legitimise restriction on smoking, advertisement and cultivation of the crop.

This, we affirm, is a prerequisite in environmental protection and securing a healthy life for the non-smokers and a sustainable environment.

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• Cigarette Firm Injects $66m Into Economy 

The Tanzania Cigarette Company (TCC) contributed about US$66 million to the Tanzania government coffers in various taxes in the previous fiscal year.

Presenting the firm's performance for the financial year 2005, Mr Jorge da Motta, TTC's Chairman and General Manager, said in 2004, the company paid taxes amounting to $58.3million.

The 2005 performance therefore reflected a 13% increase from 2004. The gross turnover rose from $120,520 in 2004 to $135,640 million last year.

Motta, however, said the company's net profit declined slightly to $17.05 million in 2005, down from $17.82 million in 2004, a drop he attributed to the depreciation of the Tanzania shilling and inflationary pressures on imported raw materials.

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