Kakaire A. Kirunda
19 August 2008
Exactly four years to the day that Maj. Gen. Kahinda Otafiire, then Water, Lands and Environment minister, directed police to arrest smokers in public places, Ugandans continue to puff away wherever they please following failure by the responsible government agencies to implement the directive.
Announcing the directive while opening a two-day workshop on environmental crimes for the Criminal Investigations Department (CID) on August 19, 2004, just days after signing the law banning smoking in public, Maj. Gen. Otafiire told the Police: "Now that the law is here, if you find someone or people smoking in public places, just arrest them."
But while the law was supposed to outlaw smoking in gazetted public places like public buildings, hospitals, public vehicles and sports stadia, little has changed in the last four years. It is not unusual to find people smoking in many such places.
More worrying for the country's fight against public smoking, a large number of school-going youth continue to take up smoking.
A recently released report, titled 2007 Uganda Global Youth Tobacco Survey Report and prepared from interviews of more than 4,000 students of 51 different schools across the country, indicated that 15 per cent of the students confessed having ever smoked, 16 per cent admitted using tobacco at that moment while 5.5 per cent were smoking cigarettes.
The report also indicated that girls were taking up smoking as much as their male counterparts. In Kampala alone, 16 per cent of the boys were said to have admitted smoking against 14 per cent of the girl population interviewed.
The government is now coming under renewed pressure from activists led by The Environmental Action Network (Tean) to effect the law, but the move has so far only succeeded in exposing the laxity of some of the responsible agencies like the police and the National Environmental Management Authority (Nema).
Nema publicist Naomi Karekaho told Daily Monitor in a recent interview that their role did not extend to implementation. She said: "Our work is to put in place regulations and that is what we did regarding the public smoking ban. Police should help you with an explanation on the matter".
Police publicist Judith Nabakooba, however, argued that the implementation of the law could only succeed if Police worked in tandem with Nema. "These people are supposed to issue warning notices whereby after failure of compliance they notify police and then we move in to arrest the suspected law breakers," she said.
Ms Nabakooba's explanation was far from convincing to state minister for environment Jessica Eriyo who dismissed it as an attempt to jump the gun. "The Police are well aware that when Parliament passes a law, automatically it becomes their duty to enforce it with or without being prompted," she said in a separate interview.
"They are supposed to enforce environmental laws just like other laws. The National Environment Management Authority briefed them already and they know what to do. There is no need for fresh orders from Nema for them to act."
But even if the Police was to perform its role more seriously, questions remain about their effectiveness in a country with an official ratio of one policeman for every 800 persons.
Analysts argue that public policing would be the next best option under circumstances where the Police cannot be completely effective, but the general complacence of the public makes this untenable.
In the meantime, the vacuum in the implementation of the law has left smokers in public places to get away with murder, literally.
The World Health Organisation says tobacco use is one of the main risk factors for a number of chronic diseases, including cancer, lung diseases, and cardiovascular diseases.
The Director of the Cancer Institute at Mulago Hospital, Dr. Jackson Oryem, says many of the cancer cases they are now receiving are a result of smoking.
"Have you ever heard of lung cancer, cancer of the throat, cancer of the tongue, and bladder? We see patients with such cancers. And smoking is a risk factor to these types of cancer, although there are other contributory factors."
Some analysts have argued that because of the financial benefits the government reaps from tobacco trade, it is unlikely that they will come hard on public smokers.
Uganda's leading cigarette maker, BAT Uganda, was the sixth highest taxpayer in the 2006/07 financial year with Shs49.8 billion, accounting for nearly two per cent of the country's total tax collections that year.
BAT Uganda's Corporate and Regulatory Affairs Manager Cathy Adengo said the company supports "sensible and enforceable regulation that protects the rights of smokers and non-smokers".
"The main objective of restrictions on public place smoking is to ensure that non-smokers are not affected by smoke in the air.
We believe the important thing is that consultation takes place, restrictions are reasonable and that time is given for implementation," she said, conveniently forgetting that implementation of the ban on public smoking is four years late.
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