Monday 19 January 2026 – Tax Justice SA (TJSA) is demanding that the Fair-Trade Independent Tobacco Association (FITA) immediately identify the criminal manufacturers who are destroying legitimate jobs, hollowing out local industry and robbing South Africa of tens of billions in tax revenue.
FITA chairperson Sinenhlanhla Mnguni told eNCA on Friday that his organisation had “expelled” members found to be non-compliant with the law. However, he failed to name a single company, provide details of the alleged offences or explain what action – if any – had been taken against those responsible.
Mnguni’s comments came a day after British American Tobacco South Africa announced the closure of its Heidelberg factory in Gauteng, citing years of collapsing sales driven by the unchecked growth of the illicit cigarette market. Illicit products now account for an estimated three out of every four cigarettes sold in the country.
Tax Justice SA leader Yusuf Abramjee said FITA’s public posture rings hollow.
“Despite overwhelming evidence that its members’ cigarettes are evading taxes on an industrial scale, FITA continues to dodge the issue and shield the perpetrators,” Abramjee said.
“If FITA has truly expelled members involved in illicit trade, as claimed by Mr Mnguni, an admitted attorney, it is his public duty to name them. Anything less amounts to a cover-up.
“These criminal manufacturers are at the heart of what has become the world’s biggest black market in cigarettes. It’s a menace that is depriving South Africans of at least R30 billion a year that should be funding hospitals, schools and policing.”
Independent data underscores the scale of the crisis. An Ipsos study published last year found illicit cigarettes were being sold in 76.6% of stores nationwide – nearly triple the rate recorded just three years earlier.
More than a third of illicit purchases identified in the survey were brands produced by companies actively resisting the South African Revenue Service’s legal right to install 24/7 camera surveillance in cigarette warehouses – a basic enforcement tool designed to curb tax evasion.
These companies include Carnilinx, a principal member of FITA. Alarmingly, more than 94% of Carnilinx brands purchased in the survey were sold at illicit prices.
Professor Corné van Walbeek of the University of Cape Town’s Research Unit on the Economics of Excisable Products (REEP) has repeatedly warned that some local manufacturers deliberately downplay the illicit trade for their own benefit.
“They are, in principle, legitimate companies,” Van Walbeek said. “But we’ve found they might produce a million cigarettes and declare only 100,000.
“Local groups work on the principle of ‘let’s make as much money as we can, as quickly as we can, because at some point the government is going to crack down’.”
TJSA says that point has now been reached.
“FITA cannot claim to represent ‘fair trade’ while shielding companies that cheat the fiscus, undermine law-abiding businesses and push thousands of workers into unemployment,” he said.
“We are calling on FITA to come clean, on SARS to enforce the law without fear or favour and on government to stop appeasing an industry that is bleeding the country dry.
“South Africans deserve transparency, accountability and action – not excuses. Name the culprits, shut them down and end this national looting operation once and for all.”
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