Politicians will decide today whether to continue ploughing millions of pounds of public sector pension payments into big tobacco companies.
The Courier revealed last month that Tayside Superannuation Fund (TSF) has invested £47 million in British American Tobacco (BAT) and £15 million in Imperial Tobacco in the last three years.
Councillors Sawers, Black, Murray, Keenan, Gordon and Borthwick, who sit on the superannuation sub-committee, will discuss how cash from the £2 billion pension pot is invested.
Lib Dem councillor Fraser Macpherson said: ”When you’ve got clear evidence that the practices of some tobacco companies are not ethical, I think any reasonable person would not want pension payments to be invested in that direction.”
An anti-smoking charity has also called on the sub-committee to stop investing in tobacco companies.
Sheila Duffy, chief executive of ASH Scotland, said: ”I strongly welcome this review. Any investment in tobacco shares comes at the price of people’s health and lives, and undermines all the good work that is being done to protect children and help smokers quit.
”Dundee is known for its innovative work to challenge tobacco dependence, including its pioneering stop smoking work, support to help pregnant smokers to quit, and innovative award-winning initiatives from young people on tackling tobacco.
”I call on the council to show leadership here and to take an ethical decision to disinvest from tobacco shares. The future financial security of employees should not depend on exporting an epidemic that has already blighted so many lives in Scotland.”
The council’s head of corporate services, Marjory Stewart, pledged to review investments after The Courier published its finding.
Convener of the superannuation sub-committee, Willie Sawers, said: ”I look forward to the feedback from fund managers and would wish alternatives to this type of investment to be urgently examined.”
Local government pension scheme regulations published in 2010 set limits on the maximum levels of investment, but they do not specify permitted or prohibited investments.
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ”The Scottish Government requires local government pension schemes to take ethical and social considerations into account when making investment decisions.
”Councillors have a duty to act in the best interests of present and future beneficiaries of the funds of which they are trustees, but they are not prevented from making ethical investment decisions.”
Both British American Tobacco and Imperial Tobacco declined to comment.