The Health Portfolio Committee has outlined the processes that are remaining for the completion of the Tobacco Products and Electronic Delivery Systems Control Bill.

Addressing the media on Thursday, committee Chairperson Sibongiseni Dhlomo said the bill will be ready to be taken to the National Assembly for debate in September and thereafter to the National Council of Provinces for concurrence.

“We are looking forward to really fine tuning this bill so that we can begin to really get into regulations,” Dhlomo said.

The bill aims to regulate both the sale and advertising of tobacco products as well as electronic delivery systems.

It also seeks to regulate the packaging and appearance of tobacco products and electronic delivery systems, and to provide for the regulation of standards in respect of the manufacturing and export of tobacco products and electronic delivery systems, among other things.

The bill was introduced in Parliament during the sixth administration and was then revived in July 2024 after it lapsed two months earlier.

At the time the bill lapsed, the portfolio committee had conducted public hearings in seven provinces and was left with two provinces.

Dhlomo stated that the committee has now completed public hearings in both the Western Cape and Northern Cape.

“That process has now been dealt with. It is behind us.”

He also said 60 organisations, institutions, and individuals have requested to make oral submissions to the portfolio committee after the public hearings in provinces.

“That process kicked in and we will complete that process hopeful by Thursday next week,” said Dhlomo.

The committee has been interacting with organisations, institutions, and individuals to receive their presentations since last week.

Dhlomo said once the committee is done with affording the institutions and individuals an opportunity to make presentations, the Department of Health will be invited to respond to the issues raised during the public hearings.

“We have been with them in all these public hearings in provinces. They have to actually now indicate what their responses are in the light of what we have been hearing.”

The committee will thereafter process the bill clause by clause during September.

“We are almost like panel beating, finding the views of South Africans and those who have participated,” said Dhlomo about the bill that was introduced by the Department of Health to be amended through contributions and suggestions by the citizens.

“Hopefully by the end of September, this bill should then be ready to be taken into the House for debate, and also it will be voted on for and against.

“If this bill then gets voted in and is supported by the majority of Members of Parliament in the National Assembly, it will then take its route into the National Council of Provinces for other processes.”

Dhlomo noted that the bill has been in Parliament since 2023 and was really urgent, particularly from those involved with vaping products.

“Some of the people we have met are saying, ‘Please regulate us. We need to be regulated’. These are mainly those who are in vapes because, partly, this bill is improving what is there for tobacco, cigarettes, and all that, but it is actually a new thing that we have never seen before, the issues of vapes and hookahs.”

He also said that right now, the users of vapes were just left as they are and nobody touches them.

“They do as they wish and I think that is something that we need to be dealing with very strongly.”

mayibongwe.maqhina@inl.co.za

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