Durban - Pravin Gordhan is determined to make South Africans healthier, and to this end on Friday proposed that a 20 percent tax be imposed on sugary drinks.
The planned tax, which is expected to come into force next year, will delight health campaigners but dismay the beverage industry.
The statement gave the first concrete details of a tax that was first suggested by the finance minister in February - which the Beverage Association of SA has already dismissed as “discriminatory” and bound to fail.
“The proposed tax… comes against the backdrop of a growing global concern regarding obesity stemming from over-consumption of sugar,” the Treasury said on its website.
In a press release on Friday, the Treasury said that “fiscal measures such as taxes” were the right steps to stop South Africans from growing fatter and developing diseases such as heart disease, type-2 diabetes and some forms of cancer.
Some experts calculate that by 2030 total health-care expenditure related to adult diabetes will cost South Africa between $1 billion (R14.58 billion) and $2 billion.
More than half of South Africa’s adults are overweight, with 42 percent of women and 13 percent of men obese, according to Treasury data. Sub-Sahara’s most industrialised economy also has its most obese population, the figures reveal.
In previous media reports, researchers estimated that the growth in consumption of sugary drinks by 2.4 percent - the rate at which sales of sugar-sweetened beverages are expected to rise - could lead to an additional 1.3 million obese adults by 2017.
Coming just days after the Department of Health introduced salt-level limitations on commonly consumed goods, the Treasury released the policy paper on Friday on the sugar tax, and now wants the public to comment on it.
Independent on Saturday