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Sugar association rejects any sugar tax increase, warns of job losses

Details

BL Premium reports that ahead of the upcoming budget speech, the SA Sugar Association (Sasa) has called on the government to halt any increase or expansion of the sugar tax, saying it needed time to research and implement its diversification strategy under which sugar cane would be used for a wide range of applications outside refined sugar.

A study commissioned by the body and conducted by the Bureau for Food and Agricultural Policy (BFAP) revealed that an increase or expansion of the health promotion levy (HPL), also known as the sugar tax, would result in a drastic 125,000-tonne reduction in local refined sugar demand for 2023/2024. The association cautioned that changes to the sugar tax could put up to 6,000 jobs and the livelihoods of 3,000 small-scale farmers at risk. Introduced in 2018, the levy applies to sugary beverages and was implemented as a means to decrease diabetes, obesity and other related diseases. In the budget speech of February 2022, the finance minister hiked the HPL from 2.21c per gram to 2.31c per gram, but the increase was postponed due to the moratorium negotiated under the Sugar Masterplan, with the government indicating a need for broader consultation. However, the moratorium is coming to an end this year and there have been a number of new proposals for increasing and expanding the levy. The SA Cane Growers Association has called for the HPL to be scrapped, saying the sugar tax was another unnecessary burden on an industry struggling to irrigate its crop due to intensive load-shedding while fighting to keep up with cheap sugar imports.

  • Read the full original of the report in the above regard by Michelle Gumede at BusinessLive (subscriber access only)
  • Read too, Health-tax hikes threaten thousands of SA sugar jobs, at Moneyweb


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