Government Urged Not to Ratify Tobacco Control

JAKARTA. Government urged not to ratify the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (FCTC). The call came from tobacco farmers and workers.

Ministry of Health (MOH) is to ratify the treaty in the form of Presidential Regulation (Perpres) which enhances the current tobacco regulation, Government Regulation (PP) No.109/2012 on Tobacco Products Protection.

The tobacco industry has aggressively tried to halt the FCTC due to the potentially destructive impact it can have on the industry. AMTI Chairman Muhaimin Moefti said, there is uncertainty about the implementation of this legislation, because existing tobacco regulation has not been fully implemented. "The current PP is a compromise of the interests from our industry and health sector and we formulated this policy for three years,” Muhaimin said, Tuesday (25/2).

The existing regulation requires Smoking Area to be built in public area, also banning the purchase of cigarettes by minors. But in reality, the government did not implement the rule to the fullest. "Why create a new rule, while existing regulation has not been executed," Muhaimin said.

AMTI claims to have the support from the Tobacco Farmers Association (APTI), Indonesian Clove Farmers Association (APCI) and other organizations. AMTI seeks to make petitions against the FCTC. "So far we have to resort to diplomacy to reject this plan. We will wait to see what will happen," he said.

Support also comes from House of Representative. Members of House Health Commission Hendrawan Supratikno claimed to have sent a letter to the President in connection with this treaty. "We had sent an official letter dated February 21, 2014 as an initiative of the House of Representatives. Contents of the letter are to ask the President to postpone the ratification of this treaty," he said.

As a middle ground, the House of Representatives have agreed to brought on the Tobacco Act draft to a plenary session of the Parliament for endorsement. The government is expected to be patient and wait for the results of this discussion.

Strong rejection to the ratification does not make MOH retreat. Deputy Minister of Health  Ali Ghufron Mukti ensures that the ratification process of the treaty did not stop and kept rolling. "We do not know when regulation will be released, because the President has not yet signed the presidential regulation," he said.

Rejection of ratification gets stronger by the end of 2013, when the government declared the ratification of the treaty in the form of PP.  But the promised ratification has not yet implemented.

The government is also yet to agree on the treaty's ratification. Ministry of Industry refused the ratification because more cigarette factory will be closed down. The Ministry of Agriculture also worried farmers income will sag.

Indonesia is the only Asian country yet to ratify the FCTC. As of July, 177 countries are parties to the FCTC through either ratification or accession mechanisms. Indonesia is one of eight World Health Organization (WHO) member countries, including Andorra, Liechtenstein and Monaco (Europe) and Eritrea, Malawi, Somalia and Zimbabwe (Africa) that have yet to both sign and become parties to the convention.