Sir Trevor Hassell calls for an increase in ‘sweet tax’
President of the Healthy Caribbean Coalition (HCC), Sir Trevor Hassell, is of the view that the ten per cent tax imposed on sugar-sweetened beverages needs to be increased.
While acknowledging that it is a useful first step in the fight against non-communicable diseases (NCDs), he expressed that the levy implemented by Government, two years ago, was not “a significant one”.
In his 2015 budget speech, Minister of Finance Chris Sinckler cited Barbados as being “on the verge of a national crisis with regards to persistent health problems associated with NCDs”, as the impetus for the tax. It was applied to local and imported beverages that contain high calorie sweeteners, such as soft drinks, juice drinks, sports drinks and fruit juices.
“Because the tax was not a significant one, only ten per cent, the retailers – the private sector absorbed the tax and so the unhealthy sugar-sweetened beverages are not more expensive than the healthy beverages. Therefore, we have to put the tax at a level where they cannot afford to do that,” he explained.
Sir Trevor, who was at the time fielding questions about the “Sweet Tax” after signing a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) between the University of the West Indies Open Campus and the HCC, said that the tax should be increased to at least 20 per cent.
“There is now a lot of good international evidence that says that one needs to impose a tax of at least 20 per cent on sugar-sweetened beverages, to achieve the objective that we are looking for,” he explained.
“We at the Healthy Caribbean Coalition and in public health in general, in Barbados, see the tax as an important public health measure that needs to be applied together with informing the public of the adverse effects of the consumption of sugar-sweetened beverages,” Sir Trevor stressed.
As it relates to applying a tax to the fast food industry, the HCC President told reporters that there is a connection between chronic diseases and the over-consumption of unhealthy fast foods.
“The challenge that I threw out to the fast food industry is to use their tremendous resources to create healthy fast foods. If you can do that, then I think we would all be able to agree that this a direction that we can go in to support the fast food industry,” he stated.
“Should a tax be applied to the unhealthy fast food industry. My answer to that from a public health perspective is ‘yes’, if it is in the best interest of the health of the people of the nation,” he said. (TL)