Growing up, I never thought I’d be a smoker. My parents were smokers, one of my grandmothers died of a smoking-related cancer and I hated the haze of passive smoke that hovered throughout our home. But, at Rhodes University, I found myself sampling free Benson & Hedges at various university-hosted parties. Before I knew it, I was hooked. Big tobacco might no longer be able to play dirty games to get young people addicted to their products, but they still play dirty in other ways. Just ask Johann van Loggerenberg who has suffered at the hands of sinister operators in a cut-throat industry. Van Loggerenberg, a former South African Revenue Service corruption buster, spoke to Alec Hogg about his latest book, Tobacco Wars. – Jackie Cameron
Do the big tobacco corporations need to be investigated for criminal activity? Tobacco Wars author Johann van Loggerenberg says draw your own conclusions.
___STEADY_PAYWALL___
He is not at liberty to discuss information that isn’t in the public domain but says: every organisation should be squeezed – “big, medium and small and everyone down the value chain”.
In his time as an anti-corruption buster at the South African Revenue Service, his approach was “to squeeze on all parts of the waterbed, the waterbed would include big, medium, small and everybody down the value chain. The one multinational that did publicly state and confirm that they were undergoing a full scale audit by the Revenue Service was British American Tobacco South Africa. In the media in April 2014. So they confirmed that”.
And, he continued, “that’s about as much as I can say to you publicly – just join the dots from that side”.
Van Loggerenberg’s new book, the third in a series linked to corruption in South Africa, has rattled cages.
The Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association on Wednesday tendered an apology to the South African Revenue Service and any of its employees who may have been harmed by FITA’s members, reports Fin24. It said the association was building a “new relationship” with the tax agency. Sinen Mnguni, FITA’s chairperson, told Fin24 that this apology would include one to Van Loggerenberg.
In Tobacco Wars, Van Loggerenberg delves into rivalries in the SA tobacco industry. Van Loggerenberg resigned from SARS in February 2015.
“In the past, FITA’s relationship with SARS was strained, and that strained attitude from our members included how we viewed anyone – including Van Loggerenberg – who tried to investigate and police the tobacco industry. But since I have taken over a few years ago, we have built up a co-operative relationship,” Mnguni is reported as saying.
“The tobacco war is for market share and the bigger players have used their influence to target our members. We, on the other hand, never had relationships with government. I am now trying to engage with the relevant departments,” says Mnguni.
“We deny that we are part of illicit tobacco trade. We are a legitimate association with tax-paying members who create jobs.”
There are two main industry bodies in the South African tobacco industry, says Fin24. TISA represents international players British American Tobacco (BAT), Phillip Morris International, Limpopo Tobacco Processors, and others. FITA, meanwhile, represents manufacturers Carnilinx, Gold Leaf Tobacco and Amalgamated Tobacco Manufacturing, among others.
In the interview with Alec Hogg, Van Loggerenberg contextualises Tobacco Wars.
“The first book was the story of a small investigative unit within the South African Revenue Service that had been tarnished through the media for several years, since 2014, and it was basically the only platform to get the truth out there.
So I wrote that book together with a former colleague of mine Adrian Lackay. He was the head of communications at the institution at the time.
The second book was was more a book sort of like a trip down memory lane covering key investigative cases and prosecutions in the period 1998 to 2014 when the Revenue Service was operating at its at its height. So more short stories with with perhaps a few bigger stories a thread in between them.”
This third book on tobacco wars “is a little bit different in that I’m writing it as a complete outsider and that they are touch points in respect of the Revenue Service” and other law enforcement agencies and intelligence services but only to the extent that it overlaps with why I make the case that certain people initially from the tobacco industry attacked the South African Revenue Service and how that initial attack was then capitalised upon by various groupings and various people for nefarious purposes. And I think the reader can connect the dots. I don’t make allegations. I put the facts,” he says.
I make the point in the book that there are no angels in the tobacco industry whatsoever. So nobody must misunderstand me on that.
“I use the analogy of you know; you get you get the bag snatchers and the muggers and then you get the bank robbers and to effectively combat those crimes, you need to focus on the muggers, the bag snatchers and the bank robbers.”
The so-called “agents of influence” not only “serve their masters that were multinational tobacco manufacturers but they were very, very close, closely intertwined with law enforcement and intelligence operatives,” he adds.
