{"id":72023,"date":"2022-09-22T17:47:21","date_gmt":"2022-09-22T15:47:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/?p=72023"},"modified":"2022-09-22T17:47:21","modified_gmt":"2022-09-22T15:47:21","slug":"uct-study-indicates-that-batsas-70-illicit-cigarette-trade-estimate-is-too-high","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/uct-study-indicates-that-batsas-70-illicit-cigarette-trade-estimate-is-too-high\/","title":{"rendered":"UCT study indicates that BATSA’s 70% illicit cigarette trade estimate is too high"},"content":{"rendered":"

1 min read
\n<\/em>22 September 2022
\n17:45<\/p>\n

\"\"British American Tobacco South Africa announced in August that the illicit cigarette trade comprised 70% of the total market in South Africa in the past year.<\/p>\n

But according to a new study by University of Cape Town’s PhD candidate Nicole Vellios, BATSA’s estimate is wrong.<\/p>\n

The results were published in an article in Econ3x3, the online economic policy publication housed at UCT’s Southern Africa Labour and Development Research Unit.<\/p>\n

Nicole Vellios spoke with Radio Islam International to discuss her research findings.<\/p>\n

Vellios mentioned two reasons why the BATSA estimate is incorrect: the forecast of 70% is for Gauteng, not for South Africa as a whole, whereas the number for South Africa is 34%. The second reason is that the number is for the stores that sell illicit cigarettes, not the total number of cigarettes consumed.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, she said that BATSA exaggerated the illicit trade with the hope of swaying the national treasury from increasing excise taxes.<\/p>\n

According to Vellios, the BATSAs’ only objective is to maximise profits and monopolise the market.<\/p>\n

BATSA is losing market trade to illicit cigarette manufacturers who are not paying the excise tax and VAT, amounting to R23.<\/p>\n

Hence, they use the stats to prove illicit trade is a concerning issue, albeit underhandedly.<\/p>\n

She added that as much as the illicit trade is a massive issue, it is not as high as BATSA makes it to be.<\/p>\n

“So, in our estimate, illicit trade is around 54% which is still a huge number,” she said.<\/p>\n

However, Vellios said they think illicit trade is a problem because of weak chain supply control, not because of high excise taxes.<\/p>\n

Vellios sent an inquiry email to BATSA about the 70% estimate but has not responded.<\/p>\n

[LISTEN] to the podcast here<\/a><\/p>\n

By Nokwanda Dlangamandla
\nkzn@radioislam.org.za<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

1 min read 22 September 2022 17:45 British American Tobacco South Africa announced in August that the illicit cigarette trade comprised 70% of the total market in South Africa in the past year. But according to a new study by University of Cape Town’s PhD candidate Nicole Vellios, BATSA’s estimate is wrong. The results were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[28,31,4995],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-72023","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-latest-news","category-podcasts","category-south-africa"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pc0QIf-iJF","jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-04-30 21:16:26","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72023","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=72023"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/72023\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=72023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=72023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/radioislam.org.za\/a\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=72023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}