Tobacco lobby powerful voice at general election time

Tobacco lobby powerful voice at general election time

Ratih Sayidun and Santi W.E. Soekanto, Contributors/Jakarta

Jumadi, an ojek (motorcycle taxi) driver in Kelapa Dua, Depok,
enjoyed the election campaign immensely because participating in
street rallies often meant brand new T-shirts as well extra money
on top of the Rp 20,000 he usually earns every day.

Depending on which party was holding the rally, Jumadi could
pocket as much as an extra Rp 25,000, but most of this money went
on feeding his addiction: cigarettes.

This was why he was more than happy when some legislative
candidates even distributed packs of cigarettes bearing their
party logos. Nevertheless, he often pondered why the more he
smoked, the greater his craving for cigarettes became.

Pretty soon, even the money that he claimed to be earning for
his family seemed to be going up in smoke. Earlier this month,
his youngest daughter was reduced to tears as her teacher had
threatened her with expulsion unless Jumadi paid all the school
fees that he had allowed to build up.

Following his failure to obtain loans from his neighbors, he
was reduced to begging for help from "rich people" in the area
whom he did not even know. Finally, one family agreed to help but
not without giving him a harsh scolding first, "You should stop
smoking because all of the money that should go toward educating
your children is wasted on cigarettes!"

Jumadi knew his benefactors were right, but he just did not
know how to quit.

Unless the whole nation takes notice, among the first
casualties of the 2004 general elections will be the poor and the
sick, especially those suffering from tobacco-related diseases,
which kill up to 400,000 Indonesians annually, cause more than
US$300m in annual medical expenses and, in 2001 alone, resulted
in Indonesians taking 16 million days off work as a result of
tobacco-related problems, according to official estimates.

The situation is worrying not only because some election
contestants attempted to avoid accusations of outright bribery by
resorting to another "hard currency" -- cigarettes -- but because
not one of them has ever displayed the slightest concern about
the dangers posed by the legalized drug.

"If the political parties are not concerned about handing out
cigarettes, how can we make headway when we go to the House?"
asked Widjajanti, a campaigner for the Indonesian Smoking Control
Foundation, as quoted by the Financial Times in March.

Presidential candidates, too, are not innocent when it comes
to the love affair between power and the tobacco industry.
Megawati has a poor record on tobacco control, and her party
activists distributed thousands of red packs that featured her
smiling picture holding cigarettes stamped with the party logo.

At least one other presidential candidate received a donation
from a large tobacco firm to help fund his campaign. Considering
that tobacco firms spend an average of Rp 40 billion on
advertising in eight cities every three months, spending a couple
more billion on backing a potential power holder could be
considered money well-spent.

If this candidate wins, he might just maintain the policy of
Megawati's government that has made Indonesia a tax haven for
tobacco firms. According to World Bank data, tax on tobacco here
accounts for about 31 percent of the price of a pack of
cigarettes, contributing some Rp 30 trillion (US$3.2 billion) to
the state's coffers.

Tobacco consumption in Indonesia from 1977 to 2000 increased
sevenfold -- from 33 billion to 187 billion cigarettes.

Among the reasons for this is the fact that cigarette prices
here are among the lowest in the region. A pack of 20 cigarettes
costs about Rp 4,800 (52 U.S. cents) in Indonesia, much lower
than the US$3.08 it costs in Singapore. No wonder that up to 70
percent of Indonesian males in certain age groups smoke and
expose themselves and those around them to a variety of health
hazards that will cost the country twice as much in the future as
the government's revenues from tobacco taxes.

Unless the nation really takes notice, it will be possible for
whoever succeeds Megawati to continue the neglect of the
Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC), the world's first
public health treaty, and one that Indonesia helped create but
failed to sign by the time the 29 June 2004 deadline had expired.

This is despite the fact that 126 countries have already
signed the treaty, whose main goal is to protect present and
future generations from the health, social, environmental and
economic consequences of tobacco consumption and exposure to
tobacco smoke. Indonesia is the only country in the region not to
have signed it.

Sources said that Megawati had, in fact, given the go-ahead
for the health minister to fly to UN headquarters in New York to
sign the document in June, but a last minute intervention by a
senior state official thwarted the plan.

Minister of Health Ahmad Sujudi was asked to "engage fellow
ministers in a debate" on the merits of signing the treaty before
making the commitment. The debate was never held and the election
has since conveniently put the issue on the back burner.

One Cabinet minister has gone on record as saying that
although he sympathized with the tobacco control campaign, he
thought Indonesia could not afford to lose the revenues generated
by the tobacco industry.

That's like saying that he sympathizes with Jumadi's daughter,
who was almost expelled from school, or Surtiningsih, a 67-year-
old woman in Depok suffering from lung cancer resulting from
years of being exposed to passive smoking, and millions of other
sick people who cost Indonesia up to Rp 60 billion in medical
expenses.

That's also like saying that this suffering is preferable to
increasing taxes and prices, which would actually result in a net
increase in total government revenue but also reduce consumption,
but is something that the tobacco companies will do their utmost
to oppose. The tobacco companies, both domestic and
multinational, are anxious to see that the future leader of
Indonesia preserves the country's role as a lucrative market for
200 billion cheap cigarettes annually.

Ratih is a journalist based in Jakarta and can be reached at
ratihsa@yahoo.com.