My name is Megan Rising and I am an organizer with Corporate Accountability International, formerly Infact. I am here today to deliver a message on behalf of consumer, health and environmental rights groups from across Africa.

Mr. Camilleri, within the past year, Philip Morris/Altria has made several attempts to expand your markets in Africa, including by increasing your presence in both Nigeria and South Africa. As organizations representing people across the African continent including members of the Network for Accountability of Tobacco Transnationals (NATT), we are urging you to stop.

People in African countries are already dealing with a tremendous burden of economic, health and environmental issues. We simply cannot afford to add a tobacco epidemic, particularly when it is entirely preventable.

The African continent has spoken on tobacco. Our nations united to lead the way toward a strong, enforceable Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. Now our governments are moving ahead with the rest of the world in ratifying and implementing the treaty.

Late last year your competitor British American Tobacco suffered negative attention in Kenya and around the world when it was exposed for sponsoring a beach holiday for 75 members of Parliament in advance of discussions on a tobacco control bill to implement the global tobacco treaty. Your corporation also meddles in our health policy including through promotion of ineffective and even counterproductive "youth smoking prevention programs."

Your attempts to expand into African countries and to interfere in our public health policy are most unwelcome. As youth tobacco addiction rates in Africa increase, your executives and shareholders reap the economic rewards, while we are left with increasing rates of disease and death.

We urge you to stop thinking of African countries, and countries across the Global South, as expansion markets for your deadly products. We assure you that we will build resistance to your abusive practices in every region of Africa.
Mr. Camilleri, how will our concerns be reflected in your business strategy for the coming years?

Signed, 

• Action for Integrated Development, Ghana 
• ADDC-WADATA, Niger
• Association Congolaise pour la Défense des Droits du Consommateur, Congo
• Citizens Assistance Centre, Nigeria 
• Consumers Information Network, Kenya
• Environmental Rights Action/Friends of the Earth, Nigeria
• Friends of the Earth, Cameroon
• Friends of the Earth, GhanaFriends of the Earth, Sierra Leone 
• Green Peoples Environmental Network, Nigeria 
• Groundwork, Friends of the Earth, South Africa
• National Consumers and Environmental Alliance of Togo
• National Consumers Forum, South Africa
• National Consumers Forum, Seychelles
• Nigerian Heart Foundation, Nigeria
• Zambia Consumers Association, Zambia
  

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