FACT CHECK - ANALYSIS: South African industry falsely blames job losses on sugar tax By Aisha Abdool Karim
So far 1,000 jobs have already been lost in the sector and this figure is steadily climbing,” reads aThe statement also claims that there are 350,000 jobs at risk in the sugar industry and that the job losses are due to the sugar tax.
Yet there is no quick fix to address the complicated nature of these other factors, making the elimination of the sugar tax an easy but deceptive remedy to offer in time for the elections., the sugar tax is only applied to sugary beverages. Despite only being introduced in April last year, the levy has become a soft target to blame for a sugar industry already in decline.
Given that this is a projection, it is not an actual count of job losses. It also counts the end of employment for seasonal workers as a job loss, when this form of work is always temporary.asked Dr Thomas Funke, commercial executive at the Canegrowers Association, how many jobs had actually been lost to date.We’ve got that information, but the thing is we need to stick to our 10,000 because that is what we’re pretty sure of will be the total job loss number,” Funke said.
However, a spokesperson for Coca Cola said that the increased tariffs placed on sugar last year were “a large contributing factor to commodity price increase for our business”. Parliament’s trade and industry committee has also called on Minister Rob Davies to engage with the Department of Health and National Treasury to discuss the impact of the levy on the sugar industry, after this issue was raised during a meeting on 26 February. It is important to note that all decisions regarding the levy itself must be made by Treasury.Even without such a tax the industry is under threat,” said committee chair Joanmariae Louise Fubbs.
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