17th September, 2013
Nigeria is one of the biggest 10 tobacco markets in the world, says the Managing Director, British American Tobacco, Mr. Keith Gretton.
The Federal Government of Nigeria also rakes in N15 billion as tax annually from the BAT, its Managing Director added.
Speaking when he visited Governor Babatunde Fashola of Lagos at the State House, Ikeja, Lagos, southwest Nigeria On Monday, Gretton disclosed that out of the 180 countries in the world where its product was being sold, Nigeria ranks among the 10 leading markets for its product.
Tobacco product kills millions globally every year and is one of the leading causes of lung cancer that has terminated several lives in Sub-Saharan Africa, with Nigeria mostly affected.
With Nigeria as one of the leading markets, BAT said the nation serves as very important economy for the sale of its product.
According to Gretton, BAT had been a responsible corporate citizen as it had supported agriculture in the country and remitted about N15 billion in taxes annually to the Federal Government.
He added that the company was constructing its four million pounds headquarters in Lagos, as a demonstration of the company’s long term commitment to the people of the state, saying that the company believes in the future economic prosperity of the country and that the company would continue to support Nigeria’s growth aspirations, while commending the infrastructure regeneration work which the Fashola-led administration was doing in Lagos State as well as the widely acknowledged security sector in the state.
In his remarks, Fashola appealed to BAT to carry out its business with very strong conscience about what was right and what was safe for the consumers, stressing that a company like BAT should always consider how it could better prolong the lives of the people for whom it also makes products.
“I think that an organization like yours should be able think of how they can better prolong the lives of the people for whom, you also make products and we are seeing a lot of diseases today as a result of lifestyle choices and lifestyle issues and they are getting much more complex with substance dependency and so on and so forth,” he said.
According to Fashola, BAT should stand up to be counted in terms of advancing regulations pertaining to its products.
“These are places where I would strongly think that your organization put a strong foot forward in terms of full appreciation of the need to intervene in advance of regulation as it were because I know that the lifestyle choices that people make especially in the kind of products that you make can also have certain health consequences and I think that it is important to help people to promote the risk voluntarily and openly in a manner that people therefore know what choices they have,” he stated.
The governor said it was refreshing to learn about investments being made in the Nigerian market and also the indicators of further commitments being made by BAT, adding that the benefits in terms of employment to people also comes clearly across, as the administration would also continue to play its part in terms of infrastructure support.
“We as a government remain committed to supporting businesses by filling in with the hardware end of the matter such as infrastructure, security and we would also continue to provide the environment in which your human capital can thrive and prosper,” he added.
Fashola said in the area of security, the state government encouraged institutions such as BAT to look at the bouquet of opportunities to support the State Security Trust Fund which is an entirely voluntary venture that helps the state security personnel in terms of equipment, vests, boots, patrol vehicles, among others.
He reiterated that whatever support given was not only well received but also accounted during the Trust Fund’s annual general meetings and yearly publishes the list of the donors since 2008 without failing.
Fashola said the donations had helped in providing some structures around which the resource management and logistics of the federal controlled but state deployed police is managed.
—Kazeem Ugbodaga