Three agencies will still get 'sin tax'

The Constitution Drafting Committee (CDC) dropped a proposed clause from the draft charter that granted the three agencies a four-year “grace period”, after which their funding from levies collected from the sale of |alcohol and cigarettes would have stopped, a source said. 

Now the CDC has added a provision requiring that these agencies’ spending be assessed by a panel set up by the national evaluation commission, to ensure the money is spent efficiently, the source said. A ceiling will also be set to limit the amount of “sin tax” allocated to the three agencies. Relevant existing laws will be amended in two years to facilitate these changes.