FAWU marches against Sugar Tax
The Food and Allied Workers Union (FAWU) is marching to the National Treasury against the pending introduction of the Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSB), now referred to as the Sugar Tax.
Government wants to introduce the tax as a health policy step, but FAWU says the job losses that will emanate from this is unacceptable.
"The determination to mount this march was informed by admission from the Treasury and their Researchers that there will be job losses emanating from this Sugar Tax and the silly claims that those lost jobs will be fictitiously created elsewhere, say in bottled water or 100% juices factories, yet there is no scientific study to prove this," says FAWU General Secretary Katishi Masemola.
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Masemola also questions the objectives of the introduction of the Sugar Tax.
"We do not believe that a tax on sugar-sweetened beverage products will be a mechanism to achieve the intended health objectives. We think this will simply become another 'sin tax' like those taxes on alcohol and tobacco products. If this tax is introduced as a revenue-raising exercise for the Government Fiscus we may agree, but if it is introduced as a health policy intervention we beg to differ and we can argue with alcohol and tobacco that those taxes may not have worked as claimed as policy steps for all sorts of realities," says Masemola.