Countries in West Africa lose about $774 million to illegal tobacco trade, the British American Tobacco Nigeria (BATN) has said.
This was revealed by a new campaign developed by BATN to raise awareness on the facts around the illegal tobacco trade.
Legal and External Affairs Director of BATN, Freddy Messanvi, said the impact of illegal tobacco may not be felt as immediately and directly as other crimes, but the consequences are very real.
According to him, “by some estimates, illegal tobacco costs governments in West Africa about $774 million. Coming closer home in Nigeria, this implies that illicit activities attribute to the shortfall in government revenue from tobacco sales by an underestimation of over N216 billion paid in taxes to the Nigerian government which could have been higher.”
He pointed out that a crucial fact to also note is that sales of illegal tobacco have been reported to fund human trafficking, drug and arms trades as well as terrorist organisations’ activities globally.
Messanvi said BATN has been operating in Ngeria since 2003 and that in the 12 years of the company’s operations in Nigeria, it had shown commitment to the Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) signed with the Nigerian government to regularise the tobacco sector, support sustainable Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) and contribute to socio-economic development in Nigeria.
“Our partnerships with government agencies have yielded a significant reduction in incidence of illicit tobacco products in Nigeria with a reduction from about 80 per cent share of market when we first came in to less than 20 per cent as at 2015, thereby supporting the reclaiming of government revenue loss through illegal tobacco marketing channels.
Messanvi said, “we are an important part of the solution and we invest over $75 million each year globally to fight the illegal tobacco trade industry”.
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