Kukah Welcomes Calls For Increased Taxation On Sugary Beverages

Bishop of the Catholic Diocese of Sokoto and founder of Kukah Centre, Matthew Kukah, has hailed the call for increased taxation on sugar sweetened beverages (SSBs).

The bishop spoke at the Kukah Centre in Abuja during an advocacy visit by the Corporate Accountability and Public Participation Africa (CAPPA) to discuss SSBs tax in Nigeria.

He said, “It is a commendable thing if the resources that come from the taxes are used for better things. The more taxes you impose on these things, people might pull back, but you have to find a way of closing the window of people who can begin to create fake products.”

Speaking on the effects of the consumption of sugar sweetened beverages by Nigerians, Kukah said, “These are things that we are killing ourselves with by virtue of our ignorance.

“This campaign is about our own survival, so everybody must listen to what is being said about things that are dangerous to our health. Whatever that needs to be done to help our people stay alive, I think all of us must sign onto it.”

On his part, the executive director, CAPPA, Akinbode Oluwafemi, said this is the right time for government to do all it can to reduce the consumption of SSBs, adding that there is a linkage between SSBs and the risk of obesity and diabetes which are on the rise in the country.

He, however, stated that the current N10 per litre tax on sugar sweetened beverages was insufficient.

“When you look at N10 per litre, it is less than one percent of the prices of some of those products, so we are now saying that the government should gradually move toward that by first increasing to N20 and from N20 you can then continue to graduate the tax,” Oluwafemi stated.