ISLAMABAD: Increased consumption of sugar drinks has put Pakistan into a diabetic emergency where every third adult citizen is living with type-2 diabetes.
In Pakistan, more than 10 million people are pre-diabetic, experts say and warn that if the government does not take any immediate policy actions, the number of people living with diabetes may increase to 62 million by 2045.
Speaking at a workshop organized by the Pakistan National Heart Association in Murree, health and nutrition experts said beverage industry was trying to get the taxes reduced on sugary drinks and warned that if that happened, it would be a bad move for the people, especially youngsters.
Senior journalists, reporters and civil society representatives from Rawalpindi, Islamabad and Murree attended the session.
Sana Ullah Ghumman, General Secretary PANAH, hosted the workshop and welcomed the participants.
Munawar Hussain, Consultant Food Policy Program at Global Health Advocacy Incubator, said Pakistan’s economy was facing serious challenges where debt and liabilities were skyrocketing. In this situation, the Ministry of Finance should consider strategic interventions like increasing tax on sugary drinks to reduce the hospital expenditure and generate revenue to meet the shortfall, he suggested.
Referring to a study by the World Bank, he said, “If FED is increased to 50% on all sugary drinks, it shall help generate annual economic value of health impact of 8.9 million US dollars and achieve health gain of 8500 Disability Adjusted Life Years (DALYS)”.
“The WB study shows that the average annual tax revenue shall increase to 810 million US dollars for next 10 years”.
An increase of Excise Duty on all sugary drinks to minimum of 50% in 2023-24 budget can help prevent diabetes, heart diseases, stroke and cancer in thousands of Pakistanis. Increasing tax on sugary drinks can help government in bringing some relief to the low income population through social safety nets.
Sanaullah Ghumman said sugary drinks were not a necessity and their increased cost will not impact the common population. However, increasing cost of the fuels, energy and agriculture commodities will directly impact everyone.
He said the Ministry of Finance should prioritize public health over the corporate interest and increase tax on all sweetened drinks including sodas, energy drinks, juices, including fruit juices, flavored milk, iced tea, squashes, syrups and sweetened powders used to make drinks.
“Increasing tax on sugary drinks is a triple win for the government, as the policy intervention does not cost anything to government but help reduce disease burden and hospital expenditure, and increase revenue,” he said.
He said unsweetened milk and bottled water were a healthier alternative to sweetened beverages and should not be taxed to keep them affordable.
The speakers said the excise tax on sugary drinks increased during the Supplementary Finance Bill 2023 was a good step in the right direction by the government but not enough by considering the situation of diabetic emergency in Pakistan.
The speakers and civil society representatives raised their concern on the interference of beverage industry in the policy process and creating barriers to halt the tax increase.
