The
Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has
described the indictment of British American Tobacco (BAT) in a bribery scam
involving policy makers in East Africa as a shameful confirmation of public
health experts’ long belief that BAT consistently undermines life-saving
tobacco control laws in Africa.
ERA/FoEN said
the expose aired on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Panorama on 30 November,
2015 and titled: Secret Bribes of Big Tobacco
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-34964603, makes it imperative for the Nigerian
government to be wary of BATs romance with agencies of the state tasked with
implementing the Tobacco Control Act signed into law by former president, Dr.
Goodluck Jonathan.
In the
investigation revealing BAT’s conspiracy, a whistleblower, Paul Hopkins,
described how BAT funded illegal corporate espionage and how its contractors
bribed politicians and policymakers in countries like Rwanda, Kenya, and
Uganda.
Hopkins, a
former BAT personnel shared hundreds of secret documents which revealed he
started paying bribes after being told it was the cost of doing business in
Africa. His job was to facilitate the payments.
Emails he
shared revealed the corporation made illegal payments to two members and one
former member of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco
Control (WHO-FCTC), a United Nations campaign supported by 180 countries, aimed
at reducing deaths from tobacco-related illness.
An FCTC
representative from Burundi, Godefroid Kamwenubusa, and a representative from
the Comoros Islands, Chaibou Bedja Abdou, were alleged to have also received
$3,000 while former representative from Rwanda, Bonaventure Nzeyimana, was paid
$20,000. In return for the illegal payment to Kamwenubusa, a Burundian senior
civil servant, BAT also wanted a draft copy of the country’s Tobacco Control
Bill with an e-mail to the government official asking to “accommodate any
amendments before the president signs.”
During the
airing of the investigation on BBC Panorama, experts from the University of
Bath’s leading Tobacco Control Research Group (TCRG) were available for media
comment and interviews.
The report
drew global condemnation on BAT with Dr. Vera Da Costa e Silva, from the WHO,
saying BAT was irresponsible for using bribery to profit at the cost of
people’s lives. She recommended that the corporation be investigated by the
government and punished accordingly.
In a statement
issued in Lagos, ERA/FoEN said the report is indeed an eye-opener and must be
seriously noted by governments around the world and particularly in Nigeria
where BAT controls 80 per cent of the cigarette market, as it showed the length
the corporation will go in thwarting anti-tobacco legislations in countries it
is allowed to interact freely with public officials.
ERA/FoEN
Deputy Director, Akinbode Oluwafemi said, “We are not at all surprised. We had
long suspected this. The BBC findings are happening not only in Uganda, Kenya
and Rwanda; They are happening in virtually all the nations in Africa where BAT
is operating, capitalising on weak institutions of government that it readily
throws cash into to compromise its officials. The aim of this, has been, and
will always will be to weaken or outrightly stop legislations that save lives.
“We believe
BAT works openly and behind the scenes to thwart the FCTC. These findings
challenge the Nigerian government to wake up because all through the torturous
processes of getting the National Tobacco Control Bill (now Tobacco Control
Act) into law, hurriedly-formed BAT front groups were deployed to fight
taxation, ban on Tobacco Advertising Promotion and Sponsorships (TAPS) and
other life-saving provisions from getting into the final document.
“While we
support the global call for BAT to be probed for the East African bribery
scandal, we urge that the investigating agencies also beam the searchlight on
BAT operations in West Africa and particularly Nigeria where it is involved in
so-called anti-smuggling campaign and lobby to thwart increase in taxes,”
Oluwafemi said.
