Lloyd Gedye
Lloyd Gedye is a freelance journalist and one of the founders of The Con.
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/ 25 April 2008

Big retail in food probe

Supermarket chains are to be pulled into the Competition Commission’s investigation into collusion in the milk industry, following a complaint by dairy farmers. Milk prices, along with other basic food products, have increased drastically in the past year.

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/ 21 April 2008

Tyre-makers inflated prices

South African motorists have their own Imraahn Ismail Mukaddam — the whistle-blower who blew the lid off collusion in the bread and milling industry. The consumer hero this time is Alwyn Parsons, director of Witbank-based Parsons Transport. It was his complaint more than a year ago that sparked the Competition Commission’s investigation into collusion in South Africa’s tyre-making industry.

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/ 17 April 2008

Blue lights are the rage

It seems the mayors of the Greater Tzaneen and Greater Letaba municipalities are eager to join the fight against crime, as both have had sirens and flashing blue lights fitted to their official cars. Not be outdone, the mayor of the neighbouring Greater Letaba municipality, Joshua Matlou, has fitted a siren and flashing blue light to his black Toyota twin-cab.

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/ 18 March 2008

Indian lessons in busting cartels

South African mobile operators are charging up to 1 000% more than Indian mobile operators for a minute-long call. A comparison between one of MTN’s standard pre-paid packages and Indian operator Reliance Mobile’s standard packages showed that mobile call rates in South Africa are exorbitantly overpriced.

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/ 10 March 2008

Booming TV

Local television producers wait with bated breath for the expected multibillion-rand boost to the sector that is expected to be driven by the entry of three new broadcasters in the second half of this year. Analysts and stakeholders are predicting an investment between R2-billion and R5-billion.

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/ 10 March 2008

Ivy begs for Sentech’s survival

It was a game of pass the buck in the government last week over who exactly was responsible for the decline of state-owned telco Sentech. Early last week, Sentech released a position paper in which it accused the government of failing to allocate it the funding it required to roll out its wireless broadband network.