The Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth Nigeria (ERA/FoEN) has described the indictment of British American Tobacco (BAT) in a bribery scam involving policy makers in East Africa as a shameful confirmation of public health experts’ long belief that BAT consistently undermines life-saving tobacco control laws in Africa.
ERA/FoEN said the expose aired on British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) Panorama on 30 November, 2015 and titled: The secret bribes of big tobacco, makes it imperative for the Nigerian government to be wary of BATs romance with agencies of the state tasked with implementing the Tobacco Control Act signed into law by former president, Dr. Goodluck Jonathan.
In the investigation revealing BAT’s conspiracy, a whistleblower, Paul Hopkins, described how BAT funded illegal corporate espionage and how its contractors bribed politicians and policymakers in countries like Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda.
Hopkins, a former BAT personnel shared hundreds of secret documents which revealed he started paying bribes after being told it was the cost of doing business in Africa. His job was to facilitate the payments.
Emails he shared revealed the corporation made illegal payments to two members and one former member of the World Health Organisation Framework Convention on Tobacco Control (WHO-FCTC), a United Nations campaign supported by 180 countries, aimed at reducing deaths from tobacco-related illness.