PAMI and FKIK Recets ‘Tobacco Bill’
FKIK building, UIN NEWS Online— Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences in cooperation with the Association of Public Health premises (IAKMI) held a talk show entitled “The Victory of Tobacco Bill, For Whom?.†The event was attended by at least 150 participants took place on Wednesday (15/03), at the Auditorium FKIK UIN Jakarta.
Present at the event held as a form of adverse reactions for the Tobacco Bill which certified on March 18th, Julius Ibrani (public attorney / program coordinator PBHI National), Baequni PhD (Chairman IAKMI), and Erika Hindayanti student of UIN Jakarta who is also the member public relations and media division member of PAMI are moderating the proceedings.
In his presentation, Julian said that there are inequality and lack of clarity occurred between tobacco farmers and tobacco imports. "Unfortunately, there is no mechanism for clarification, supervision or monitoring from the industry. The industry only report on needs, availability of goods, and the shortage of the amount of imported goods. From there, we can see that ath the end of the day, the tobacco import control does not fall on the Government, but the players (industry) itself," he said bluntly.
He also added, the regulations regarding the custom is still ambiguous, if any imported goods is subjected to the customs is normal, then if the imported tobacco is processed then exported, the customs fee is refunded. This is quite strange, like borrowing money then returned from tobacco rotation.
According to Julian, RUUP (Tobacco bill) does not remove the original price cuts from the farmers to the industrial sector. The farmers are getting very little benefit, whereas the actual sale price is very high.
“On 2006, The Minister of Agriculture made a regulation regarding community development. But, the tobacco community wasn’t listed, because it considered can’t be developed. Thus, that is the actual fate of tobacco farmers, their plant is high-risk, they have no capital, no insurance, and is subjected to industrial pollution,†he asserted.
At the same place, Baequni said that the price for a popular cigarette brand in Indonesia is the cheapest compared to another country, in the US, a pack of cigarettes cost $23, in Singapore it costs $13, whereas in Indonesia it only costs around $1.2 to $1.5, the producers dared to sell the goods in cheap price in Indonesia because it’s profitable, compared to the purchase price of tobacco in this country.
 “The decrease in Tobacco farmers is the result of tobacco import. Besides, the machine used to produce cigarettes in the other country is more sophisticated,†said Baiquni.
At the end of his presentation, Baequni invite the NGOs, Indonesian society, especially the participants in this event to break the chain of young smokers and is ready to facilitate such business. (rs)