School uniform competition contraventions

Practices around supply to be changed, prices expected to come down

INVESTIGATIONS into the R10 billion school uniform industry have shown anti-competitive behaviour between schools and suppliers.

And in good news for parents around the country who are digging deep into their pockets to pay for school uniforms, things could change.

Competition Commission spokesperson Sipho Ngwema said the investigation into potential contraventions of the Competitions Act by a number of schools, school uniform manufacturers and suppliers was at an advanced stage, and some of the findings so far included:

Most schools that had entered into exclusive agreements for the supply of school uniforms had not done so through open tenders across all provinces.

Of those schools that currently have exclusive agreements with school uniform suppliers, most started a number of years ago. The earliest contract was made in 1974 and some were still entering into such agreements last year.

One third of private schools (about 183 of 573), and 567 of 1 723 former Model C (FMC) schools indicated having exclusive agreements with school uniform suppliers. Of all those private and FMC schools that have exclusive agreements, 87% of private schools and 53% of FMC schools have just one exclusive agreement.

Ngwema said the commission had engaged the Department of Basic Education, various schools and school groups, school uniform manufacturers, distributors and other relevant stakeholders to change the practices around the supply of the uniforms.

“An announcement will be made in this regard within the coming weeks,” Ngwema said.

The process started when, in January last year, schools, school uniform manufacturers and suppliers complained of anti-competitive behaviour in the school uniform sector.

Parents had complained that they could only purchase school uniform items for their children from a particular, specifically identified school uniform supplier.

Consequently, they paid high prices for the uniforms.

Some school uniform suppliers complained that certain schools had entered into exclusive contracts with specific suppliers.

The commission also did a survey that showed a large number of schools were not familiar with a circular issued by the Basic Education Department on May 15, 2015 regulating school uniform purchasing.

The circular stated that school uniforms should be as generic as possible, such that they could be obtainable from as many suppliers as possible, and that schools should appoint more than one supplier.

The commission found “a very significant proportion of the schools in each province were not aware of the circular”.

At the time, department spokesperson Elijah Mhlanga said that while schools could claim they were not aware of the circular, this did not mean that the circular had not reached them.

School uniforms should be as generic as possible