JOHANNESBURG - South Africa continues to bleed billions of rand in the growing illicit cigarette trade.
The South African Revenue Service says international criminal syndicates are infiltrating the illicit market.
Revenue service bosses appeared before the Portfolio Committee on Health to provide strategies and enforcement measures to curb the tobacco black market.
SARS commissioner Edward Kieswetter said the share of illicit tobacco that is consumed in South Africa is over 50 percent.
"We have personally seen the interplay between policy choices and the entrenchment of this illicit trade into the economy," he said.