Retailers want PM’s intervention to scrap

Staff Reporter :
The livelihood of hundreds of small traders and businesses will be uncertain, if the proposed amendments to the Smoking and Tobacco Products Usage (Control) Act 2005 (Amended in 2013), is implemented.
People employed in the sector that the requirements for mandatory tobacco retail licence, selling loose cigarettes, and ban on ferrying tobacco products will put these small traders and businesses under unbearable stress, as they struggle to recover from the aftermath of the Covid-19 pandemic, they said.
In a letter to Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina, the National Association of Small & Cottage Industries of Bangladesh (NASCIB) seeking her intervention, stating that the new proposed amendment will threaten the livelihood of more than 1,500,000 marginal retailers.
“The Bangladesh market is primarily dependent on loose-cigarette sales. A lot of people avoid buying full packs when they are trying to quit. A ban on selling loose cigarettes will be harmful to people trying to quit, as well as resulting in loss of enormous amounts of revenue for the government,” said NASCIB president, Mirza Nurul Gani Shovon.
Instead of imposing impractical restrictions, Shovon called on the honourable prime minister to scrap the new provisions that will hurt the livelihood of over 80 lakh people and instead, enforce tobacco control laws in a more effective and practical manner. He believes the new proposed provision will not help the goal of making the country tobacco-free by 2040. According to data from World Bank, the smoking rate among adults has gone down significantly from 44 per cent to 34.7 per cent between 2010 and 2020.
Muhammad Selim, a small trader who has a small roadside shop near Dhaka’s Mirpur-6, said that new law with provisions for new fines will ramp up extortion. “Doing our day-to-day business is already difficult. We have to pay protection/extortion money to different parties just to be able to operate. If there is a new law for more fines, extortion will increase,” he said.
As most offices were closed due to the pandemic restrictions, Selim said, stall owners like him could not earn an income for many months. He fears that a mandatory retail tobacco license and ban on selling loose cigarettes will be just as bad as banning the business.
Abdul Wadud, Professor at Rajshahi University, thinks that the concerns of these marginal businessmen and traders are legitimate. “They have to operate within a very volatile economic environment, with very little capital and have to face other a lot of obstacles. The requirement for a separate licence for sale of tobacco products will prove to be an additional burden for these small retailers. In order to protect the informal economy, we need to provide alternative livelihood options for the affected.”
“Bigger organisations and businesses can easily overcome these obstacles because of their influence and connections,” added Wadud. During the pandemic, big businesses received help from the government in the form of stimulus packages. But small businesses with limited capital cannot survive in a hostile environment.
NASCIB president Shovon noted that most of the small traders do not even have a fixed place from where they can sell. “Most are floating sellers. It is practically impossible for them to acquire a retail licence, which requires a holding number,” Shovon said.