The Tobacco Control Amendment Bill, 2024 that was first introduced in August 2024 by nominated Senator Catherine Muyeka Mumma has raised questions and uncertainty among Mombasa County business owners and retailers.

The Bill was set to regulate the production, sale, advertisement and smoking of nicotine products including the use of nicotine pouches and vapes.

The bill also stated that it is illegal for a person to sell tobacco products through hawking, from vehicles or through mobile vending, an offence that would attract a fine of not more than fifty thousand shillings or imprisonment for not more than six months or both.

Advertising, offer for sale or selling tobacco products in any online or digital platform was also made illegal in the bill.

Offenders for this will face a fine of not more than five hundred thousand shillings or imprisonment for a term of not more than three years or both. The bill also seeks to ban flavours in Nicotine products.

Mombasa County small business owners and retailers are now asking when public participation was done before the Bill was passed. The new constitution states that Public Participation is mandatory for any law to be passed and the small business owners claim that this was not done for this specific Bill. Their request is that fresh public participation to be carried out across the country for Kenyans to air their views concerning the same.

Through the many proposed stringent measures, passing this bill means that big retailers and distributors will have access to the sale of the products, thus leaving out the small business owners and retailers. The bill will kill the small businesses and this will ultimately affect hustlers’ businesses.

The Bill proposes to give counties powers to require specific and separate licenses for sale of tobacco products. This goes against the spirit of the single-business permit and will only make it more expensive to do business. It will also open the gates for county officers to ask for bribes in order to facilitate the license processing.

Passing the Bill will lead to increase of nicotine products in the black market. There will be an increase of illicit trade in cigarettes and other nicotine products such as vapes and nicotine pouches. Legitimate business will reduce as most people will go for the black-market products which will be cheaper and easier to access.

The Small Business Owners and retailers are now asking the Senate to drop further discussion on the Bill and come out to the people to listen in to their input and get a better appreciation of the issues they are raising. If they lose business, it means that the Government loses as well, hence, all the measures that the Bill was seeking to achieve, will all be for nothing.

They are calling out on the Senator for Mombasa County to stand up for small business owners and reject the bill: They want the Senator to do the right thing by standing with small business owners and call for the halting of the Bill until further consultations have been done, and to take into consideration the views of people from his county. Their claim is that the Senator has not come to them  to ask  what they think about the Bill and to clearly assess the impact it will have on their businesses and livelihoods.