From food to insurance, watchdog casts net wide

THE Competition Commission has many sectors of the economy in its sights, and will revisit some areas to assess whether its scrutiny has borne fruit.

The commission is completing its investigation into construction companies, which were found to have colluded on big projects.

“This is where we need to do a lot of work,” says competition commissioner Tembinkosi Bonakele. “How do we ensure this doesn’t happen again?”

Food and agricultural processing is a priority, he says. “We only scratched the surface on food.”

This market has battled to emerge from regulation and control. With fruit, for example, agents control whose products are sold at the Johannesburg and Tshwane markets and at what price. This makes the price easy to fix, he says.

Telecommunications, where several mergers are under way, is another sector of great interest to the commission, and it is also looking at healthcare costs.

The automotive sector is on the radar, especially regarding the supply of car components to manufacturers. The commission received many complaints about secondhand cars, panel beaters and insurers.

“I think people are generally dissatisfied with the insurance industry. They don’t know why they are charged what they are charged. I’m not saying we’re launching an investigation, but there are a lot of consumer issues.”

He plans to revisit the banking sector to see whether competition has improved following an investigation several years ago.

Big business may be relieved to hear Bonakele’s thoughts on large corporates. “You can’t punish people for being big — that in itself is not a crime. You can’t send the wrong signal that being big is a problem,” he says.