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• Smoking ban to stay, says minister 

The Government is spoiling for a fight with tobacco firms on the ban on public smoking.

Local Government minister, Mr Musikari Kombo, has said the ban and arrests of smokers violating the law would continue.

Assertions by outraged stakeholders that only Parliament had the powers to pass the law to effect the ban on smoking in public places was wrongly perceived, Kombo said.

"We are only complementing Parliament. And our stand is that we shall not relent on the issue," he said, adding the council's action did not in any way interfere with the Tobacco Bill before the House.

Kombo was reacting to views by tobacco companies that the ban infringed on the rights of smokers.

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