The Advocating for Health Coalition aimed at creating a favorable environment and stakeholder buy-in for food-related fiscal policies in Ghana, organized a National Stakeholders Conference under the theme “Taxes Build Nations: Evidence-Informed Health Taxes Saves Lives”. Held on March 28th at the Sun Lodge Hotel in Accra, the conference brought together key stakeholders from government ministries, agencies, departments, academia, civil society organizations (CSOs) and the media to discuss the science behind food-related health tax polices and the current state of implementation of Ghana’s Excise Duty Amendment Act (1093).
Professor Amos Laar, the Principal Investigator of the Advocating for Health (A4H) project kicked start the days series presentation with evidence on the rationale for food-related health taxes in Ghana. During his presentation, he explained how food environments shape consumer choices, making it imperative to promote the consumption of safe and healthy foods through health taxes. He urged stakeholders to collaborate in curbing the production and importation of unhealthy food products to mitigate the NCD crisis.
Prof Shu.Wen, a Public Health nutrition scholar at the Gillings School of Global Public Health, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, during her keynote address, highlighted the adoption of SSB taxes in several countries, including South Africa, UK, Portugal, and Ireland. She emphasized that SSB taxation could elevate prices, reduce consumption, foster industry reformulation, generate revenue and reduce the burden of NCDs.
Following Prof Shu’s presentation, Mr. Austine Iraoya an Economic Public Health Research Consultant at the Centre of the Study of the Economies of Africa, shared research findings on the fiscal and public health effects of the SSB tax in Nigeria. These findings highlighted a significant trend: SSB taxation stimulates reformulation efforts, resulting in reduced sugar content. Consequently, this proactive measure has effectively mitigated the burden of NCDs within the nation, he said.
Presenting on the current state of the policy implementation in Ghana, Dr. Alex Kombat, the Assistant Commissioner of Research and Policy at the Ghana Revenue Authority, underscored the significance of imposing health taxes on unhealthy food products, such as Sugar-Sweetened Beverages (SSBs), as a crucial measure to safeguard citizens’ well-being. He emphasized that health taxes create a multifaceted win-win-win-win scenario for the country.
In his delivery, he explained the implementation strategies aimed at ensuring the successful execution of the policy, while also acknowledging the challenges inherent in SSB tax implementation, such as insufficient nationwide sensitization and illicit importation of SSBs. Dr. Kombat proposed solutions to overcome these hurdles, advocating for the redesigning of the tax structure based on sugar content, comprehensive training for custom and excise unit staff, and collaboration with industry groups to facilitate seamless tax administration.
Dr. Kombat’s presentation was followed with an open discussion session stakeholders identified and discussed the challenges, opportunities for the effective implementation of the SSB tax in Ghana. Dr. Abdulai, a lecturer at Nutrition and Dietetics at the University of Cape Coast, pointed out the lack of transparency and accountability in tax mobilization, advocating for greater clarity on the amount of revenue collected from SSBs and how these revenues would be utilized.
Mr. Francis Essel, a person living with NCD, mentioned using revenues generated from SSB taxes to incentivize healthier food and beverage alternatives for those unable to afford high-cost healthier foods, thus enabling them to access and afford these healthier alternatives. Similarly, revenues from health taxes should be allocated for treating harms caused by the consumption of SSBs and other health-harming commodities. There should also be fairness in distributing these revenues among Ghanaians, regardless of their political status. Mr. Austine Iraoya, a research consultant on evidence-based policy making in Nigeria, reiterated that this approach and proper earmarking of resources will help address equity and ethical considerations in the implementation of the health taxes. With regards to monitoring and evaluation of the policy, he further urged that barcode used for tax collection need to be authenticated. He also indicated that most data in Africa is secondary sourced. “Before effective monitoring can take place, there should be a comprehensive collection of data on SSB production, sales, and consumption in the country” he said.
Additionally, taxes on health-harming commodities such as SSBs create opportunities for illicit trade (smuggling), and accurately generated data and control of barcodes would help in effectively monitoring illicit trade in the country.
Mr. Percival Agordoh, the National Vice President of Ghana, expressed gratitude to all attendees and emphasized the importance of supporting the SSB tax and continually advocating for the Health of Ghanaians.
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https://gna.org.gh/2024/04/advocacy-groups-intensify-efforts-to-review-laws-on-ssb/
