Fresh EFF bid to have alcohol advertising banned follows years of failed efforts by others

On 8 September 2025, EFF member of Parliament Veronica Mente-Nkuna introduced a private member’s bill to amend the Liquor Act 59 of 2003. Notice of intention to introduce the Bill and invite comment on it was first made on 4 October 2018, almost seven years ago, and, hearing no more about it, we assumed it had disappeared without a trace.

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Seven years might seem a long time, but there have been even longer efforts to restrict or ban alcohol advertising, none of which have come to fruition. We will map some of these efforts, starting in 1999, just after the adoption of the Tobacco Control Amendment Act 12 of 1999, which provided for “the prohibition of advertising and promotion of tobacco products; to provide further, for the prohibition of advertising and promotion of tobacco products in relation to sponsored events”.

Leading this game-changing tobacco legislation process was the Department of Health, led by the health minister at the time, Nkosazana Dlamini Zuma, actively supported by tobacco control activists who had been lobbying for decades for more effective legislation to protect people from the dangers of smoking. And, according to one of those activists, Dlamini Zuma was so emboldened by their success in getting the Tobacco Control Amendment Act passed that she asked the same team that worked on the tobacco legislation to consider how to do the same for alcohol. 

However, according to my informant, it seems that many of those same activists and government officials who had approached the tobacco issue with such passion and commitment were seemingly unable to work up the same enthusiasm for more effective alcohol legislation, so nothing came of the minister’s request. Why that happened is not the subject of this article, but bears discussion because alcohol harm is generally – and incorrectly – seen as less of an issue than tobacco harm.

Also in 1999, a Liquor Bill drafted by the then Department of Trade and Industry (DTI) was sent to the Presidency and, after some changes for it to pass constitutional muster, it was enacted in 2003 (59 of 2003). However, this Act did not take on the issue of alcohol marketing in a substantive way, merely saying that alcohol shouldn’t be advertised “in a false or misleading manner” or “in a manner intended to target or attract minors”.

In 2008, a largely unnoticed but not insignificant event took place. The national conference of the ANC Youth League – an organisation then reputed (unfairly or otherwise) to engage in hard drinking at such gatherings – adopted a very progressive set of resolutions on “alcohol, drugs and substance abuse”, which included a call for the Youth League to “lead a campaign to advocate for and ensure the complete banning of alcohol advertising in all media channels, including billboards, broadcast, print and electronic media”. A welcome, albeit perhaps unexpected, intervention by concerned young people, it didn’t go anywhere. It did, however, signal an awareness among politicised young people of the challenges associated with alcohol, just as pupils involved in the June 1976 uprising recognised that alcohol was “enslaving” their parents and burnt down some of the municipal beer halls in Soweto, Alexandra and other apartheid townships.  

In 2010, South Africa signed up to the World Health Organization’s global strategy to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. The strategy included recommendations for effective regulation of alcohol marketing, though it stopped short of calling for a complete ban. 

In November 2010, Cabinet agreed that all three spheres of government should refrain from entering into partnerships with the alcohol industry because it would create a conflict of interest and could compromise the government’s ability to carry out its legislative duties. The call was also aimed at preventing the industry from using those partnerships to promote and market themselves and their products. 

In 2011, the Department of Social Development held the 2nd Biennial Anti Substance Abuse Summit and adopted more than 30 resolutions, one of which was a call for the “immediate implementation of current laws and regulations that permit the restriction of the time, location and content of advertising related to alcohol and in the medium term banning of all advertising of alcoholic products in public and private media, including electronic media. The short-term intervention will include measures that will ensure that alcohol will not be marketed at times and locations where young people may be influenced and the content of the advertising should not portray alcohol as a product associated with sport, and social and economic status.” Another clause called for “banning all sponsorship by the alcohol industry for sports, recreation, arts and cultural and related events”.

But, because the department doesn’t draft liquor legislation, it was not in a position to ensure the adoption of laws to give effect to the resolutions. There was, at the time, an interministerial committee on alcohol and other substances, led by the minister of social development, but this didn’t translate into the department’s ability to see its summit resolutions realised in law.

Then, in 2012, there was a new and unexpected development. It was rumoured that the then (and current) health minister, Dr Aaron Motsoaledi, planned to introduce a bill that would ban all alcohol marketing – that is, advertising and sponsorships. A draft of the Control of Marketing of Alcoholic Beverages Bill was leaked and sparked a heated debate in the country, with the business world – led by the alcohol, advertising and media industries – claiming that this was going to be economically disastrous, that it would result in a jobs bloodbath, that it would threaten the existence of the media, as well as many sporting codes and cultural activities. In contrast, however, The Star newspaper published an editorial around that time, acknowledging that, in the 1990s, fearing the impact on its own survival, the paper had joined the chorus of those opposed to the banning of tobacco advertising – and had been proven wrong. “We are still here,” the editorial said.  

In September 2013, the Bill was discussed in Cabinet and approved for release for public comment. In the same month, the then social development minister, Bathabile Dlamini, released a strong defence of the Bill. Then, in October 2013, in response to suggestions that there were divisions in Cabinet about the Bill, the Government Communication and Information Services issued a statement arguing that Cabinet was united on the matter. 

But former Cabinet member Fikile Mbalula has revealed that there was indeed dissent within the executive in 2013. While minister of transport in 2021, he said that he believed controlling advertising was a desirable thing to reduce the number of alcohol-related traffic incidents. However, on the same occasion, he admitted that, as minister of sport in 2013, he had opposed the Marketing Bill because of the negative impact he feared it might have on his constituency at the time. 

In fact, the Bill was never published in a Government Gazette and the public were never invited to comment. Strong opposition from many quarters and a lack of political will resulted in it being taken off the agenda, despite three socioeconomic impact assessments saying that, if enacted, the legislation would lead to a reduction in alcohol harm.

In 2016, the then trade and industry minister, Rob Davies – whose portfolio included responsibility for the national Liquor Act – finalised a new liquor policy for the country. This policy – and a draft Liquor Amendment Bill which would, if enacted, give effect to the new policy – were presented to Cabinet in September 2016. The new policy was adopted and the Amendment Bill approved for release for public comment.

The Liquor Policy of 2016 included the statement: “There is a need to reduce liquor advertising as part of a holistic approach to reducing liquor abuse. Studies show that young people who are exposed to alcohol marketing are more likely to start drinking, or if already drinking, to drink more.”

Unlike the Marketing Bill of 2013, the Liquor Amendment Bill was made public. It had a number of groundbreaking (for South Africa) sections, including one which would raise the age at which someone could buy or be sold alcohol from 18 to 21. Another section introduced fairly robust restrictions on advertising but fell short of the complete ban proposed by the Department of Health’s Control of Marketing of Alcoholic Beverages Bill. 

In early 2017, in my capacity as national coordinator for the Southern African Alcohol Policy Alliance in SA, I wrote to the then health minister, Motsoaledi, and asked what had happened to the Marketing Bill. He responded in March 2017, saying:

“Having given thorough consideration to this issue I have decided to broadly support the proposals in the National Liquor Policy and National Liquor Amendment Bill with regards to alcohol advertising. While this Bill perhaps does not go as far as previous proposals that have been tabled, it certainly does take us a number of steps forward… We have not completely shelved our vision of a country free of alcohol advertising and sponsorships, but believe that the current proposals take us a long way towards this goal and that in the longer term the objective will still be achieved.”

Towards the end of 2017, after months of public consultation, the 2016 Liquor Amendment Bill was put on ice with no explanation. Later, we were privy to inside information that this was a decision based on “political considerations” – and nine years later, it has still not been enacted. In addition, neither of the two ministers subsequently appointed to head the now Department of Trade, Industry and Competition has said anything publicly about the Bill or about alcohol harm reduction generally. 

During Covid-19 there were loud calls for “something to be done about alcohol”, including one by President Cyril Ramaphosa in a Sunday Times interview in January 2021. This was because the ban on alcohol at various stages of the pandemic had revealed the extent of the alcohol harm problem in the country. However, despite what was learnt during Covid, nothing has been done by the government to reactivate the Amendment Bill or initiate any other process that would lead to an alcohol-safer South Africa. 

In 2024, after the national elections and Motsoaledi’s reappointment as national health minister, we wrote to him as Working for an Alcohol Safer South Africa (Wassa), the organisation I now work for, congratulating him on his appointment and raising the issue of the 2013 Marketing Bill once again. We pointed out that the Liquor Amendment Bill had never been passed and therefore restrictions on alcohol advertising had not been enacted as expected. Given that the Amendment Bill seemed unlikely to be passed soon, if ever, we suggested to him that it might be opportune to reactivate his Control of Marketing of Alcoholic Beverages Bill of 2013 and, this time, to make sure it was released to the public for comment. 

His chief of staff replied on his behalf, saying the minister appreciated our goodwill message regarding his appointment and assured us that alcohol remained a concern for him. There was no direct response to our suggestion that the Marketing Bill process be revived. 

Given this long and unsatisfactory history of efforts to restrict or ban alcohol marketing in pursuance of an alcohol-safer South Africa, we wholeheartedly welcome and endorse the introduction of the EFF’s private member’s bill in Parliament, albeit seven years after it was first made public in 2018. We will do whatever we can as Wassa to promote it. We are particularly concerned about the impact of alcohol marketing on young South Africans – despite its claims to the contrary, the liquor industry is constantly engaged in “grooming” young people to consider alcohol consumption as a “normal” and “natural” part of becoming an adult, thereby securing an ongoing market for its products. 

Of course, we don’t know how the current Parliament and the Government of National Unity Cabinet will view this Bill. Will they acknowledge its importance and summon the political will – and courage – to pass it, in defiance of the inevitable fight-back by the (globalised) liquor industry and others who will want to see it die the same death as the Department of Health’s 2013 Marketing Bill? As former DTI minister Rob Davies said in his 2021 memoir, Towards a New Deal, when discussing the stalled Liquor Amendment Bill of 2016 and what the new 2019 administration might do about it: “It remains to be seen…” DM

Maurice Smithers is an office bearer at Working for an Alcohol Safer South Africa.