T

he government has denied any involvement in the striking off of a contentious sub-article on tobacco in the recently endorsed health law, deemed an effort to protect the country's cigarette industry.

State Secretary Hatta Radjasa said the sub-article was already missing when his office received the bill.

He said he had coordinated with the Health Ministry and the Justice and Human Rights Ministry to look into the problem, "Now, the State Secretariat has a complete version of the law, with the missing sub-article, to be enacted by the President."

"If the House of Representatives' secretariat claim they *the House* received the draft law without the sub-article from the State Secretariat, it's simply not true. That's not how we send draft laws to the House," Hatta told a press conference.

"The way it works is the State Secretariat receives the endorsed bills signed by the House speaker to be submitted to the President. And we do a check to ensure the document is in line with agreements reached by the government and the House."

A law takes effect after it is signed by the President or 30 days after it is endorsed by the House.

The defective new health law, said Hatta, has only two of the three sub-articles in Article 113. In the appendix, however, the article which specifies the regulations on addictive substances, consists of three sub-articles.

The missing sub-article reads that addictive substances as mentioned in sub-article (1) covers tobacco; tobacco-containing products; addictive solids, liquids and gases whose use can harm oneself and/or one's surroundings.

Hatta said he would ensure that every page of the corrected bill would be approved by himself, the Health Minister, the Justice and Human Rights Minister and the House speaker before being signed by the President.

The bill was endorsed by the old House whose term ended on Sept. 30, 2009 but newly elected House Speaker Marzuki Alie pledged the problem would be looked into and all necessary steps would be taken to avoid such incidents happening in the future.

"We're going to check whether the decision to erase the sub-article was made on purpose. If it was, then we will follow it up," detik.com quoted him as saying.

The draft bill had 19 chapters and 123 articles without the word tobacco. After its endorsement, the bill got thicker, comprising 22 chapters and 204 articles, including article 113 with its three sub-articles. The endorsed bill was handed over to the State Secretariat and the second sub-article was missing.

Wisnu Brata, an executive of the Indonesia Tobacco Farmers Association (APTI), could not hide his happiness over the fact that the sub-article stipulating that tobacco was regarded as an addictive substance had been removed from the law.

"This shows that the people's representatives are concerned with their people," he said.

"Tobacco farmers have a right to earn a living and they are part of the Indonesian people too, not only those who are anti-tobacco," he added.

Wisnu said the removal of the sub-article showed that the association's lobbying efforts had appeared to have achieved its goal.