This article was first published by TimesLIVE on 24 March 2025
Aaron Motsoaledi’s desire to police people’s smoking habits has seemingly not abated despite the Government of National Unity (GNU)’s growing foreign and domestic dramas, including a massive R375 billion budget deficit.
Economic growth is stagnant, foreign funding is frozen, rolling blackouts are returning, and still more people are unemployed. Yet even faced with the unaffordable behemoth of National Health Insurance – Motsoaledi is not dissuaded from powering ahead with the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill.
Nhlanhla Ndlovu, CEO of the NEDLAC Community Trust, has joined the chorus of sensible voices against this controversial legislation, noting that the bill still does not adequately distinguish between traditional cigarettes and their significantly less harmful alternatives.
The gaping flaws have been shared with the health department and Parliament by the Free Market Foundation, among others, since 2018 when the Tobacco Bill was first proposed.
It is one of many examples of legislation the government has deemed necessary without a popular mandate. Indeed, has any ANC politician – or any other politician for that matter – ever stood at a rally or a town meeting before an election, and asked whether their voters want this bill adopted?
We live in a very different South Africa to that of seven years ago, yet this and many other laws remain unreflective of the new world of the GNU and 2025.
To many members of the National Assembly, freedom is a value of convenience, not a determinative imperative. National priorities slip away at the demand of ideological imperatives such as policing consumers’ smoking habits.
In his State of the Nation Address, President Ramaphosa stated government’s health priorities as fixing hospitals, reducing waiting times, and improving patient experiences. The Tobacco Bill helps achieve none of these things.
The question remains – is it concerns about public health that is driving the bill toward adoption or the state’s distrust in personal responsibility and replacing consumer freedom with control?
Instead of focusing parliamentary time and effort on employment, reducing waiting times, ending load shedding – it focuses on where one may smoke, going so far as to contemplate jailtime for those smoking in their own homes if the home is used “as a workplace.”
Imagine it – you smoke a cigarette before a Zoom meeting with your team from work when you hear a knock on the door from the police who by law must deem you a criminal.
Not only cigarettes will be covered in this new reality, but alternatives like vapes and nicotine pouches.
By lumping traditional cigarettes with other nicotine products, the state ignores scientific evidence that the latter offers a significantly reduced-risk alternative for smokers. This is not just a failure of nuance; it is a seemingly deliberate rejection of reason in favour of the South African government’s desire to curry favour with the busybodies at the World Health Organisation (WHO).
Is it coincidence or deliberate that the bill is being pushed weeks before the WHO Assembly in Geneva – is the minister in search of a taxpayer funded trip to Switzerland?
As the champagne flows in Switzerland, we must be reminded that the displacement of personal responsibility is a hallmark of contemporary statism – a creeping paternal streak that erodes liberty under the guise of protection.
The Tobacco Bill is readying South Africa for outright prohibition of smoking, despite the fact that most notable examples of prohibitionism throughout history have predictably failed.
If the government truly cared about public health, it should embrace the harm reduction offered by alternatives like vapes, nicotine pouches, and e-cigarettes, not obliterate it with a one-size-fits-all clampdown.
The irony, of course, is that while the central government is preoccupied with wooing their friends at the WHO, the far more harmful illegal gang-run tobacco trade unsurprisingly flourishes.
The 2020 through 2021 lockdowns in South Africa ensured that the black market in cigarettes dwarfed the lawful market, representing some 58-60% of the total market. This number was already in the 30-40% range prior to the coronavirus pandemic.
This is not because consumers enjoy smoking risky products that perhaps did not go through quality assurance processes, but simply because “illegal cigarettes” are cheaper than their legal counterparts.
The Tobacco Bill will obviously exacerbate this even further, pushing more smokers and vapers into shadowy corners where quality control is absent and tax revenues vanish beyond our borders. How can this even be considered after Enoch Godongwana’s presentation of the budget and proposal to raise VAT?
Lawmakers would do well to do something they have yet to do – ask the public in 2025 “is this bill really a priority when South Africa faces so many other problems?”
The GNU is formed on the basis of consultation between parties – why does it refuse to consult with the public? The state must not close its ears to different views, and cannot treat policies as fait accomplis.
South Africa faces existential challenges that demand focus and pragmatism, and we can be a stronger nation if the GNU refocuses on what matters most.
President Ramaphosa and Minister Motsoaledi would do well to listen, before it lights yet another match on a pyre of the GNU’s growing problems.
