DEMTOCO awaiting regulations under new tobacco laws

– complains of difficulty meeting Health Minister

By Vahnu Manikchand

More than four months after Public Health Minister Volda Lawrence signed off on the commencement order to enforce the Tobacco Control Act, players in the local tobacco industry are worried about the absence of the necessary regulations which they need to be compliant with the new legislation.
The Tobacco Control Act became law back in August 2017 after passage by the National Assembly and subsequent assent by the President. The Public Health Minister was empowered to set a date by which the law would become effective. This was given as December 11, 2017. Additionally, the Minister was tasked with

drafting the regulations that would guide the industry in implementing certain aspects of the new legislation such as ‘no smoking’ signs, and packaging and labelling of tobacco products.
However, Demerara Tobacco Company (DEMTOCO) Managing Director Maurlain Kirton pointed out that the company has been trying since December to meet with the Minister to iron out issues relating to the regulations, but only recently got a response.
“So we’ve been, we continuously trying to meet with the Ministry of Public Health using DEMTOCO directly or through the business associations and we never got a response. So, we’ve now used our attorney to write to the Ministry and that response has recently been acquired and we’re hopefully for a meeting very soon… She didn’t indicate as to when the meeting will be held,” Kirton told <<<Guyana Times>>> at a media engagement on Wednesday evening.
According to the Managing Director, while DEMTOCO, which is a major player in the local tobacco industry, initially had some concerns with aspects of the legislation, now that it has become law, the company is ready to be compliant. But it cannot do so without having the regulations for guidance.
“There are sections of the law that requires regulations to be written; for example, the institution of the graphic health warning pictures on the packs, that requires regulation where the Minister will specifically say this is the pool of images that you need to use, this is the rotation period, how long the rotation period will last for, you may or may not have what we call a conviviality period so you rotating from image A and going to B… So those details are not contained in the legislation; that is supposed to be in the regulation,” she explained.
Kirton went on to say while the company has already gone ahead with work to be compliant with some aspects of the law, there were a series of things, such as packaging and ‘no smoking’ signs, that it needed the regulations for guidance on before it could start making changes.
“There is part of the legislation that refers to labelling and packaging and that part says you have nine months to be in compliance after the Act comes into force. That commencement Act was signed on December 11; so we’re talking about September and here we are in April and we don’t have the images. We need to get those images, send them to the supplier, have them printed on the boxes, insert it into our production line, produced, shipped, sell to our distributors and sell to our retailers. (And) there is a time that is required to do all this,” Kirton explained.
When pressed, the Managing Director could not give an estimate of the cost these changes would incur. But she did note, however, that these changes were basically retooling the industry and so the company was pulling together what it was likely to cost.
“Our factory needs to buy new machines, change our wrapping materials; we need to probably add on another shift to our working time so it is going to cost us. But the point is that, as we said, the legislation is already in place and the industry is prepared to be compliant so what the industry is asking for is that engagement via the commitment made by the Minister and some time to get ourselves ready in line with the regulation period,” DEMTOCO’s Managing Director posited.
Back in December, the Public Health Ministry had said in a statement that when the legislation for the packaging and labelling of tobacco products was passed, the industry would have nine months to comply with the legislation. It had promised to meet with the players in the local tobacco industry “to inform them of the implementation of the complete ban on tobacco advertising, promotion and sponsorship”.
It had also announced that as part of the phased implementation of the new legislation, an aggressive education and awareness campaign would have been launched in January to sensitise the public on the new law.