Unfair competition cited by PRO

MBABANE – “Some of these ‘izinyoka’ from South Africa who are stealing our jobs are doing unfair business.”

This was mentioned by Brandon Leo, the Public Relations Officer (PRO) of the Association of Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Contractors, who said there was a group of companies which manufactured commercial refrigeration equipment for the food and processing manufacturers and supermarkets who were unfairly competing with the local contractors.

“Their job is to manufacture the equipment and sell it to refrigeration equipment wholesalers and we, the contractors, buy the equipment from the wholesalers but in this case they bypass us and deal directly with our clients,” said the PRO.

He said one of the South African group of companies was currently doing business with some of the major supermarkets, which was against the law.

Supposed

According to Brandon, the fact that they were manufactures meant that they were not supposed to do maintenance work because that was the job meant for contractors.

“It is also unfair competition because we cannot compete with their prices. All these contractors need to be investigated,” he said.

The PRO went on to add that there were about 19 businesses in Eswatini that were currently using the services of the foreign companies. He said almost all firms in the food processing and manufacturing industry used foreign contractors. Most of the companies that the PRO listed said they would respond at a later stage regarding whether or not they were supporting local companies.

“If all the calculations were to be done you would be shocked how much revenue the country is losing to foreign contractors.

Captured

“Our brothers and sisters are sitting at home because our industry has been captured,” said Brandon.

According to Brandon, regardless of the size of the job, first preference needed to be given to local companies and if that company did not have the capacity to do that project, then a joint venture needed to be done. If there is no single company with the capacity to deliver the service required and the given time frame, a joint venture should be allowed but we currently are not even given that opportunity,” he said.

Brandon said the foreign companies had also corrupted their clients into believing that local companies were incapable of doing most projects.