The crack­down on il­lic­it to­bac­co trade has been tak­en to a new lev­el fol­low­ing the first meet­ing of the Work­ing Group on To­bac­co, af­ter its of­fi­cial for­ma­tion at the Fifth Meet­ing of the An­ti-Il­lic­it Trade Task­force (AIT­TF) held last month.

The Work­ing Group met on 14th March 2022, in a ses­sion that in­clud­ed rep­re­sen­ta­tives of the co-chair or­gan­i­sa­tions Trinidad and To­ba­go Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) and Crime Stop­pers Trinidad and To­ba­go, along with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, Fi­nan­cial In­tel­li­gence Unit, Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries and rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try.

A re­lease is­sued by the TTMA re­ports that dur­ing the meet­ing, Ilan­ka Man­rique, the rep­re­sen­ta­tive ap­point­ed to act on be­half of the TTMA on the AIT­TF, un­der­scored the ef­forts of the Min­istry of Trade and In­dus­try and Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty on the es­tab­lish­ment of the group, and the As­so­ci­a­tion’s com­mit­ment to work­ing with all of the par­tic­i­pants to de­vise so­lu­tions to tack­le il­lic­it trade in to­bac­co.

Dar­rin Carmichael of Crime Stop­pers Trinidad ex­pressed sim­i­lar sen­ti­ments, high­light­ing that the Gov­ern­ment los­es sig­nif­i­cant rev­enue due to the preva­lence of il­lic­it trade in con­sumer prod­ucts and the de­lib­er­a­tions of the com­mit­tee would aid in the for­mu­la­tion of a plan of ac­tion on mit­i­gat­ing against in­ci­dences of the act.

“The As­so­ci­a­tion takes it role in com­bat­ting il­lic­it trade in Trinidad and To­ba­go very se­ri­ous­ly and since Jan­u­ary 2020, has un­der­gone a se­ries of ini­tia­tives such as pub­lic aware­ness cam­paigns, train­ing ses­sions for law en­force­ment of­fi­cers and sen­si­ti­za­tion ses­sions geared to­ward ef­fect­ing change in this area,” the TTMA re­lease not­ed.

“The hope is that these ef­forts and the mul­ti-stake­hold­er col­lab­o­ra­tion through the work­ing group on to­bac­co would lead to greater re­wards for the Gov­ern­ment, le­git­i­mate, le­gal busi­ness­es and con­sumers at large,” the re­lease added.

Among the pri­or­i­ty mat­ters dis­cussed at the To­bac­co Work­ing Group meet­ing were the es­ti­ma­tion and iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of the trade lo­cal­ly, cur­rent high lev­els of tax­a­tion and key rec­om­men­da­tions to ad­dress the is­sue, such as:

●   Re­view and im­prove the en­force­ment of ex­ist­ing leg­is­la­tions

●   Im­ple­ment and in­crease more ro­bust penal­ties and fines for ac­tors that do not com­ply with the pro­hi­bi­tions un­der the To­bac­co Con­trol Act and To­bac­co Con­trol Reg­u­la­tions

●   In­ten­si­fy bor­der con­trol and se­cu­ri­ty

●   Train­ing and Ed­u­ca­tion

●   Pol­i­cy Re­form

●   Strength­en in­ter-agency and in­sti­tu­tion­al col­lab­o­ra­tion

●   In­crease man­pow­er re­sources (C&ED, TTPS, TCU, Coast Guard Of­fi­cers)

●   Im­ple­men­ta­tion of a track-and-trace sys­tem

●   Pub­lic Aware­ness Ini­tia­tives

●   Spe­cial Eco­nom­ic Zone – en­sur­ing prop­er en­force­ment and pro­tec­tion of high-risk goods

The Work­ing Group is ex­pect­ed to meet again soon to delve deep­er in­to the rec­om­men­da­tions and ac­tion plan to re­duce il­lic­it trade in to­bac­co prod­ucts.

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TTMA’s Il­lic­it Trade Desk was formed in 2018 as part of the or­ga­ni­za­tion’s thrust to in­crease aware­ness and re­duce in­stances of il­lic­it trade ac­tiv­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go. The ef­fects of il­lic­it trade are nu­mer­ous, in­clud­ing a loss of rev­enue to the Gov­ern­ment, the pro­vi­sion of sub-stan­dard goods, and the ero­sion of le­git­i­mate busi­ness­es (the lat­ter ef­fect af­fect­ing the jobs of many per­sons). TTMA rec­og­nizes the ad­ver­si­ties as­so­ci­at­ed with il­lic­it trade, and sup­ports ini­tia­tives geared to­wards erad­i­cat­ing these ac­tiv­i­ties in Trinidad and To­ba­go.