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Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping

BACKGROUND: In 2016, the South African government became the first in the African region to announce the introduction of an SSB tax based on sugar content as a public health measure to reduce obesity. This tax was introduced against the backdrop of South Africa having a large sugar production and SS...

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Autores principales: Abdool Karim, Safura, Kruger, Petronell, Hofman, Karen
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2020
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725882/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33302993
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00647-3
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author Abdool Karim, Safura
Kruger, Petronell
Hofman, Karen
author_facet Abdool Karim, Safura
Kruger, Petronell
Hofman, Karen
author_sort Abdool Karim, Safura
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: In 2016, the South African government became the first in the African region to announce the introduction of an SSB tax based on sugar content as a public health measure to reduce obesity. This tax was introduced against the backdrop of South Africa having a large sugar production and SSB manufacturing industry, as well as very high unemployment rates. The introduction of fiscal measures, such as a SSB tax, has been met with well-coordinated and funded opposition in other countries. METHODS: The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the arguments and strategies utilised by industry during policymaking processes to oppose regulatory actions in LMIC. This study analyses arguments and strategies used by the beverage and related industries during the public consultation phase of the process to adopt the South African SSB tax. RESULTS: Industry opposition to the SSB tax was comprehensive and employed several tactics. First, industry underscored its economic importance and the potential job losses and other economic harms that may arise from the tax. This argument was well-received by policymakers, and similar to industry tactics employed in other middle income countries like Mexico. Second, industry discussed self-regulation and voluntary measures as a form of policy substitution, which mirrors industry responses in the US, the Caribbean and Latin America. Third, industry misused or disputed evidence to undermine the perceived efficacy of the tax. Finally, considerations for small business and their ability to compete with multi-national corporations were a unique feature of industry response. CONCLUSIONS: Industry opposition followed both general trends, and also introduced nuanced and context-specific arguments. The industry response experienced in South Africa can be instructive for other countries contemplating the introduction of similar measures. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12992-020-00647-3.
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spelling pubmed-77258822020-12-10 Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping Abdool Karim, Safura Kruger, Petronell Hofman, Karen Global Health Research BACKGROUND: In 2016, the South African government became the first in the African region to announce the introduction of an SSB tax based on sugar content as a public health measure to reduce obesity. This tax was introduced against the backdrop of South Africa having a large sugar production and SSB manufacturing industry, as well as very high unemployment rates. The introduction of fiscal measures, such as a SSB tax, has been met with well-coordinated and funded opposition in other countries. METHODS: The aim of this study is to describe and analyse the arguments and strategies utilised by industry during policymaking processes to oppose regulatory actions in LMIC. This study analyses arguments and strategies used by the beverage and related industries during the public consultation phase of the process to adopt the South African SSB tax. RESULTS: Industry opposition to the SSB tax was comprehensive and employed several tactics. First, industry underscored its economic importance and the potential job losses and other economic harms that may arise from the tax. This argument was well-received by policymakers, and similar to industry tactics employed in other middle income countries like Mexico. Second, industry discussed self-regulation and voluntary measures as a form of policy substitution, which mirrors industry responses in the US, the Caribbean and Latin America. Third, industry misused or disputed evidence to undermine the perceived efficacy of the tax. Finally, considerations for small business and their ability to compete with multi-national corporations were a unique feature of industry response. CONCLUSIONS: Industry opposition followed both general trends, and also introduced nuanced and context-specific arguments. The industry response experienced in South Africa can be instructive for other countries contemplating the introduction of similar measures. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12992-020-00647-3. BioMed Central 2020-12-10 /pmc/articles/PMC7725882/ /pubmed/33302993 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00647-3 Text en © The Author(s) 2020 Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research
Abdool Karim, Safura
Kruger, Petronell
Hofman, Karen
Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping
title Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping
title_full Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping
title_fullStr Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping
title_full_unstemmed Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping
title_short Industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in South Africa: a systematic mapping
title_sort industry strategies in the parliamentary process of adopting a sugar-sweetened beverage tax in south africa: a systematic mapping
topic Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7725882/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33302993
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s12992-020-00647-3
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