KUALA LUMPUR: A think tank has urged the government to ban the transshipment of cigarettes, saying restricting their import to a single entry point would make it easier to crack down on the tobacco black market.
In a public policy paper released recently, the Asli Centre for Public Policy Studies said it would not be cost-effective for the Customs Department to inspect all transshipment goods given the number of ports in the country.
Restricting cigarette imports through a single port would free up resources for monitoring and enforcement efforts, it added.
It noted that the government had used the same strategy to curb rice smuggling.
It also proposed that the government channel a portion of the tax revenue from the tobacco trade towards efforts to prevent illegal trading in the commodity, saying this was the practice in a number of countries.
It called for transparency in the scheduling of tax increments to ensure that the public would know in advance when the prices of cigarettes would go up.
Asli also asked Putrajaya to facilitate the exchange of information on tobacco practices with countries in the Southeast Asian region and create a regional tracking system for tobacco supply chains.
A panelist at a round-table discussion on Asli’s policy paper yesterday called for a track-and-trace system that would be effective in locating cigarette packs in the country.
“We could ID each and every cigarette pack that enters the country and make it so that our scanning will be able to trace it until it reaches its final destination,” said Norashidah Mohamed Nor of Universiti Putra Malaysia
Asli chairman Ramon Navaratnam alleged that there was a lack of political will to tackle the issue of smoking. He said this was true not only in Malaysia but across the world.
He urged Putrajaya to be more proactive, saying the health of the poorest 40% of Malaysians was at risk because they represented the majority of buyers of contraband cigarettes.
Asli is expected to submit its paper to the health ministry soon.