Grace Fu, the Second Minister for Environment and Water Resources, said 2 days ago that smoking would be banned in more locations in the near future.
And she may even consider imposing a smoking ban on all those people born after Year 2000 (presumably such a law will only apply on Singapore citizens) - this is the kind of idea Singapore’s ministers and their grassroots supporters are capable of generating when they meet for a consultation session.
It was also reported that Grace Fu, during that consultation session, had shared with her audience that the Government was moving towards a smoke-free Singapore!
Was she serious? Isn’t the PAP Government has all along been contradicting itself?
Smoking is banned in public indoor locations, air conditioned buildings, 5-metre radius of bus-stops, HDB void decks, covered walkways ….
BUT why is smoking allowed inside our two casinos? We have Singaporeans working inside both casinos, don’t we? I was also told that many, if not the majority, of the casinos’ customers are Singaporeans! If smoking is truly so bad for health, why isn’t the government concerned about the health of these Singaporeans in casinos? Go ahead, ban smoking throughout the country, if the government is seriously concerned about Singaporeans’ health!
But you know why the government will not ban smoking entirely! Yes, revenue from tobacco tax! More than S$1 billion per annum! Cigarettes is a demand inelastic product, its demand quantity is not sensitive to price rise/tax increase. Hence, when the government raised tobacco tax, it will end up receiving more tax revenue because smokers are likely to continue buying cigarettes.
How to justify an unabated increase in tobacco tax? Get the ministers to scream loudly and clearly that smoking is bad for the health! Intensify the anti-smoking campaign! Ban smoking here and ban smoking there – but just make sure the product can still be bought and sold!
There is a problem though. As in the case of many other products, when the high tobacco tax caused domestic cigarette price to hit a ridiculously higher level than cigarette prices of regional countries, smugglers would bring in foreign supplies to sell in the domestic market at cheaper prices. However, PAP incorporated Government, being a revenue driven entity, will do anything to defend its market share : apart from jailing the smugglers (which is not an uncommon practice), investing on expensive hi-tech detection equipment, it also resorted to passing law that punishes any consumer for consuming a cigarette that has not been taxed by the PAP Government!
In the unlikely scenario of the PAP Government imposed a complete ban on smoking throughout the country (as envisaged by Grace Fu), I think taxpayers should be very worried and they should ask the government how does it intend to make up for its loss of annual S$1 billion tobacco tax revenue! Get the GST to cover the revenue lost?
Don’t be silly and get conned by the government’s logic of being able to achieve great saving because ‘no smoker means no need to treat smoking related diseases’! Even without smokers, Singapore still need hospitals, equipment and medical specialists to treat those so-called ‘smoking related diseases’ – because non-smokers also get those diseases! Actually, from the hospital’s financial point of view, it is more economical to treat more patients due to economy of scale! As every businessman knows, higher business volume translates into lower average cost. And the PAP loves low cost and high revenue!
The government’s anti-smoking campaign seems more like an effort to raise further tax revenue than showing serious concern of people’s health. It is similar to the government’s save water campaign : “Water is precious, finish your shower within 5 minutes!”, “High water tariff is necessary because water is precious!” So the next time the government’s controlled media reminds you to spend less time on your shower, be prepared to pay a higher water tariff soon!
Remember the reasons (or excuses) which the government cooked up for your payments of high COE, HDB flat, GST … … and, oh yes, ministers’ salaries? Should those reasons or excuses be painfully repeated in the media, you know it means you will have to pay more soon (or else, Grace Fool will find it harder to consider taking up a political office)!
p/s : This author discourages smoking.
Celia Lim
*Article first appeared on https://www.facebook.com/celia.maggie/posts/810951575620829:0