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KAMPALA - Government has banned smoking in
public. Water, Lands and Environment minister, Col. Kahinda
Otafiire told The Monitor last night that he had
ordered the ban with effect from midnight
yesterday.
"Yes, I
have banned smoking in all public places," Col. Otafiire
told The Monitor by telephone. He said that the police had received
instructions on how to handle offenders.
"They
know what to do," Otafiire said. Without
giving details, the minister revealed that people caught smoking in public
will face fines and, or jail terms.
The minister
defined public places as "anywhere where people converge and where there
are non-smokers who do not want to inhale the smoke."
Asked to
define such places, he named the streets, pubs, schools - even homes, he
said, where there are children, among others.
Otafiire said: "This thing has been around
for sometime but we had to enforce it." He said the Cabinet and
Parliament were behind the move.
Otafiire's ministry supervises the National
Environment Management Authority, which has been holding public consultations
over the issue.
Health
officials warn that tobacco smoking - even of second hand smoke by
non-smokers - causes diseases.
Henry Rugamba, the Corporate and Regulatory Affairs officer at
British American Tobacco (U) Ltd, the biggest tobacco firm in Uganda,
said he had not yet seen any official communication on the ban.
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