Fita challenges flip-flop on ban of cigarettes

JOHANNESBURG – The cigarette war between the government and tobacco manufacturers heated up yesterday with the Fair Trade Independent Tobacco Association (Fita) challenging in court the flip flop on the ban on cigarette sales.

Fita said in an urgent application to the North Gauteng High Court that the government needed to show the relationship between tobacco sales and a hike in coronavirus infections.

The association demanded that the court force President Cyril Ramaphosa and Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs Minister Nkosazana Dlamini-Zuma to explain the government’s U-turn on cigarette sales.

Fita chairperson Sinenhlanhla Mnguni said in his affidavit that both Ramaphosa and Dlamini-Zuma should provide information underpinning the decision to ban the sale of tobacco and cigarettes. Mnguni said there was no factual basis to contend that the prohibition of cigarette sales was related to combating Covid-19.

He called for the court to set aside the decision to ban cigarette and tobacco products, citing that it was a violation of the constitutional rights of the organisation’s members to trade.