BL Premium reports that the embattled SA sugar industry has criticised calls for the government to increase the sugar tax, saying doing so would prove disastrous for a sector that is already bleeding jobs.

Academics from institutions such as the University of Cape Town, Wits University and Oxford University opined in a newspaper advertisement this week that the levy should be doubled, noting that obesity-related diseases were among the top 10 causes of death in the country. Andrew Russell of the SA Canegrowers Association said on Tuesday that the calls showed “zero regard” for the impact the proposed tax hike would have on the 1-million people who relied on the sugar industry for their income. He pointed out that a report commissioned by the National Economic Development and Labour Council (Nedlac) showed that the sugar levy had had a significant effect on job levels.  According to the report, in the first year of the sugar tax coming into force, “there were 16,621 job losses across the industry and 9,000 job losses in the cane-growing sector alone”. Russell added that most of these job losses had been in communities living in rural areas. The sugar industry directly employs about 85,000 workers, while supporting 350,000 jobs across the value chain. The sugar tax also resulted in a R653m decline in investment into the economy, said Russell. The National Treasury indicated that it did not comment on tax proposals before the annual budget in February.

Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Luyolo Mkentane at BusinessLive (paywall access only)

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